A regulation requiring that amateur radio operators take the International Morse Code Test to obtain a license is soon to be abolished, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The commission has already approved the amendments, frequency and resources department deputy director Chen Chun-mu (陳春木) said.
However, it is obligated to make the amended regulations available for public view for two months and then make any changes deemed necessary before they can take effect, he said.
Many other nations have also removed the need for a Morse code test, he said.
Following requests from amateur radio operators, the amended regulations stipulate that they can use frequencies between 432 megahertz (MHz) and 440MHz, he said.
The amendments also extend the validity of amateur radio operating licenses from five years to 10 years, Chen said.
In addition, the amendments stipulate that amateur radio operators would be able to start renewing their licenses five months before their licenses expire, he said.
Current regulations allow them to do so one month before the expiration date.
The commission has also streamlined application procedures, Chen said, adding that the commission is in the process of amending other rules for amateur radio operators interested in using radio frequencies to conduct experiments.
People interested in operating amateur radios must first obtain a license to operate a radio station.
According to the commission, there are about 3 million amateur radio operators around the world.
Commission data showed that 42,900 licenses for qualified amateur radio operators were issued between 2012 and last year.
Over the same period, the commission issued 1,177 licenses for fixed radio stations and 15,817 licenses for mobile radio stations, the data showed.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS