The AM Forum

Well after 4 years of 'Limited' license (full priveleges above 52 Mhz) and 21 years of 'Combined' and 'Intermediate' (full priveleges above 52 Mhz and Australian Novice capability on HF and then full HF priveleges), with the stroke of a pen I now have an 'Advanced licence'.

Wow I feel so much more technically competent.

Saracasm aside, here in Australia along with some renaming of existing licence classes  the new 'Foundation' licence has just been introduced and I was suprised that AM is permitted on 80, 40, 15 and 10 metres, with a massive power of 3(!) Watts with commercial gear only.   I guess a home-brew 3 Watt AM rig would wreak havoc. SSB with 10W PEP from a commercial rig is also allowed.
The regulations actually state
"The licensee must not operate an amateur foundation station using a transmitter that has not been manufactured commercially" 

I hope many new foundation licencees , assuming there are many, will push the definition of 'manafactured commercially' to its limit, as not being able to home brew takes away an important aspect of Ham radio.

The current licence levels are:

Advanced:
120W Carrier
400W PEP
Anything narrower than 8Khz below 28Mhz
1.800 MHz - 1.875 MHz
3.500 MHz - 3.700 MHz plus 3.776 MHz - 3.800 MHz
7.000 MHz - 7.300 MHz
10.100 MHz - 10.150 MHz
14.000 MHz - 14.350 MHz
18.068 MHz - 18.168 MHz
21.000 MHz - 21.450 MHz
24.890 MHz - 24.990 MHz
28.000 MHz - 29.700 MHz
50.000 MHz - 54.000 MHz
144.000 MHz - 148.000 MHz
420.000 MHz - 450.000 MHz
and up

Standard
30 Watts Carrier
100W PEP
Anything narrower than 8Khz below 28Mhz
3.500 MHz 3.700 MHz
7.000 MHz 7.300 MHz
14.000 MHz 14.350 MHz
21.000 MHz 21.450 MHz
28.000 MHz 29.700 MHz
52.000 MHz 54.000 MHz
144.000 MHz 148.000 MHz
430.000 MHz 450.000 MHz
and up

Foundation
3 Watts Carrier
10 Watts PEP
AM, SSB , CW
3.500 MHz 3.700 MHz
7.000 MHz 7.300 MHz
21.000 MHz 21.450 MHz
28.000 MHz 29.700 MHz
144.000 MHz 148.000 MHz
430.000 MHz 450.000 MHz
an
The new Foundation licences have a 4 letter suffix eg VK3FABC wheras all other licences are 2 or 3 letter suffixes



                                                                                                         Ian VK3KRI

interesting power limitations for each license class......I would think  a large country with a small population would want full scrote communications.......