PRESS RELEASE TO DX Newsletters and DX editors,
January 1998
Two years ago I started collecting licensing information on the Internet after
receiving very encouraging responses on the DX Forum or VE7TCP's Internet DX Mailing List.
The work was much supported by Peter ON6TT who sent me the first information early
December 1995. The initial supportive words from Peter were:
"I agree with you that a lot of people here on the DX reflector have quite some
experience in moving around the world with their radio in one hand and their license in
another. I think it is a great idea if we could gather all that information, and put it
available somewhere. If the idea is taking form, I can help you with some of the places I
have been to. It would also be great not only to gather fax/telnr/address of telecom
authorities, but also more non-factual data, like how difficult it was, how to approach
them best, what are the personal interests of the guy issuing licenses (if it is only a
bottle of wine which will get me into P5, so be it!)."
The first countries for which the information was Emailed to the DX Reflector and later
put on the Web were Ivory Coast, Angola, Malawi (ON6TT), and then continued quite many
others in the order of VP9, V85, S79, 3D2, 5W, 9M8, 9M2, VK, etc (OH2MCN). Many hams sent
their information to me and the interesting and expanding work was on the way and publicly
on the Web on January 11, 1996. Starting from the beginning it was agreed that the
WebCluster of OH2BUA would be the ideal homepage for the service. Many links were made and
later also ARRL interested into the work and it was agreed with ARRL to join the efforts
in this important matter and since that there has been a continuous exchange of
information between ARRL and my service. ARRL started their service on 27 November 1996
and the cooperation started with this:
"I just came across your WWW page with licensing information. It is very impressive.
We are in process of placing similar information on the ARRL web site. With your
permission, I would like to point to your location for the countries you provide
information on (Tom Hogerty, KC1J)."
The amount of information has become bigger and larger all the time and today it covers in practice all the most important DXCC countries. The number of entries in my list of countries is today 218 but the number of DXCC countries is many more because one country like VK* covers all the Australian ham countries. During last spring and summer ARRL made a major effort in improving the service by adding many new countries to the list.
The purpose of the service is to give advice to radio amateurs about how to get a license when travelling abroad. The pages contain application forms and travel information if available and also local hints like addresses, contacts, accomodation, and similar helping to guide you to and on the DX spot. The standard structure of information is address, telephone and fax number of PTT, paperwork needed, the best way to get a license, license fee, special calls, how long does it take before you can operate, license restrictions, customs, useful local contacts, places to operate from, and notes. At the present my service has 145 files and their volume is about 613 kBytes. Many leagues and countries have now also their own Web sites whereto their are links whenever possible.
This kind of information is as good as the sources which in this case is the ham community. Many individual hams, clubs and authorities have provided information, amendments and corrections to me and their list would be too long to me published here. Altogether 95 individual radio amateurs from all over the world have helped me in collecting this information which is publicly on the Web to be used by anybody free of charge. It has been used by many recent and coming DXpeditions and why could not you be the next user of it?
Information on licensing abroad for radio amateurs by OH2MCN may be found at the URL's
http://www.clinet.fi/~jukka/license.html
http://www.qsl.net/oh2mcn/license.htm
and the ARRL licensing Web pages are at URL
http://www.arrl.org/field/regulations/io/recip-country.html
Veikko Komppa "Veke" OH2MCN
PRESS RELEASE TO DX Newsletters and DX editors,
25 October 1999
Dear Radio Amateur Fellows,
The famous licensing information pages by Veikko Komppa "Veke" OH2MCN are moving to a new server at URL
http://www.qsl.net/oh2mcn/license.htm
The change has been done due to a policy change at VTT, The Technical Research Centre of Finland. In the future the server is allowed to have VTT related material only. The old URL address
http://www.vtt.fi/ket/staff/komppa/license.htm
will be in operation about two to three weeks from today.
The above pages contain detailed information on how to get a radio amateur license when you travel abroad. The material (about 1 Mbytes) covers in practice all radio amateur countries with 230 entries at the moment. The information includes Contact information of PTT, National club, Paperwork needed, The best way to get a license, Price, Special calls, How long before you can operate, License restrictions, Customs, Useful local contacts, Places to operate from, Notes, and Travel hints. The pages are used and shared with the similar pages of ARRL (Operating Permit Information by Country). The above pages have helped numerous recent DX-peditions in sorting our how to do it in practice.
Best DX Travels to You All,
Veikko Komppa "Veke" OH2MCN
Collecting licensing information on the Internet
MORE THAN 230 COUNTRIES AVAILABLE THRU The Web
http://www.qsl.net/oh2mcn/license.htm
Internet: [email protected] or [email protected]
QTH: Pääskynkuja 7, FIN-03100, Nummela, Finland tel +358 9 2222 448
JOB: P.O.Box 1400, FIN-02044 VTT, Finland tel +358 9 456 5260
fax +358 9 456 7026
The individual country pages (subpages) of the Web site at
http://www.vtt.fi/ket/staff/komppa/license.htm
were closed early December 1999 and an auto-redirect command was added on 29.12.1999.
PRESS RELEASE TO DX Newsletters and DX editors,
January 2001
World Wide Licensing Information available Free-of-Charge on the Internet
It is now five years ago when I started creating my Web pages dedicated to radio amateurs who want to find information about getting visitor's license in order to combine traveling and DXing together. In the beginning the work was mainly about getting information from various sources to have enough start-up material from as many countries as possible. In relatively short time the number of countries was more than one hundred (DXCC) and I considered it as a big and major achievement. To day it 230 and the pages are voluminous.
The licensing web pages contain all the necessary information and contacts needed when you apply a visitor's license. There are application forms and traveling formation and also local hints like addresses, contacts, accomodation and touristic links and similar helping to guide you to and on the DX spot. The standard structure of country subpages is the following: address, telephone and fax number of PTT, paperwork needed, the best way to get a license, license fee, special call signs, how long does it take before you can operate, license restrictions, customs, useful local contacts, places to operate from, and notes.
Early 1997 the ARRL got interested in my pages and they soon started their own service partly linked to mine. Since the early beginning we have been collaborating together and the updating responsibilities of World Wide Licensing Web pages are shared between ARRL and myself. For over two years the number of countries (license administrators) has been 230 about which there exists information on my Web pages. In the DXCC sense the number of entities is much bigger because many DXCC countries have one and same administrator. A good examples of this is Australia which covers altogether 9 separate DXCC entities and the same licensing system applies in principle to all of them. (In principle because some of them need also landing permission!) Summer 1999 US started implementing the CEPT system and that made everything much easier for US hams in Europe and it also gave a possibility for European radio amateurs to visit US Pacific Islands with the CEPT license. That explaines some of the recent DXpeditions to KH* countries by Europeans!
My greatest work has been in continuous updating of the World Wide Licensing Web pages. The amount of information on the pages is enormous and if numbers can tell something here they are: 165 separate files having a total volume of plain text 1080 kBytes. To manage it, keep it in some kind of an order, change the server from one place to another etc. and to update it is a major project. Because all is taken from my free time and evening hours it may sometimes take a few weeks until I have possibility to update the subpages. Nevertheless I have managed quite well and when the panic has been the greatest the menthal support from users and ARRL has given enough encouragement to continue the work. A free-willing service like this takes its time and if I cannot do the updates immediately then they will be done later on.
The number of visitors in a year has been about ten thousand over the past three years, i.e. 200 visitors per week, which is pretty good figure but could also be larger if wanted. Many, many DX-peditions have used the pages to get initial information for their DX trips. Many are the individual radio amateurs who have helped me and ARRL in getting the new and latest information, experiences and feedback from the DX spots. Altogether the number of contributors to my pages is 165 radio amateurs from all parts of the world who have helped me in updating, improving or correcting the information. For some countries it is very difficult to get any reliable information at all. Here a good example is the Former Soviet Union or Russia and there is simply at the moment no single source which could be pointed and told to be reliable.
My long term plan is to get as many national leagues or radio societies interested about putting up their own licensing pages on their Web server so that the updating work would be nationally handled. So far it has succeeded in quite many cases but it is very hard for those countries where the national society hardly exists or is having serious financing problems and lack of writing English and maybe limited access to the Internet. My wish and plea to the national societies is that they try to do their own visitor's pages to help other radio amateurs, and also to facilitate their own work in the form of less enquiries about application forms and instructions etc. that can be downloaded from the Web. If we can get this work started I wish that within a few years the situation has improved quite much.
The second and most important wish that I have is that please send your feedback after your DX trip to me. Every single piece of information is important in this respect.
With these wishes I hope the DX year 2001 to be better and higher in DX traveling activity than ever before!
Information on licensing abroad for radio amateurs by OH2MCN may be found at the URL
http://www.qsl.net/oh2mcn/license.htm
and the ARRL licensing Web pages are at URL
http://www.arrl.org/field/regulations/io/recip-country.html
Veikko Komppa "Veke" OH2MCN