New Australian regulations make D-STAR DV-Dongle legal

It appears that new Australian Amateur regulations will make the use of the D-STAR Digital Voice (DV) dongle legal in Australia.

Richard VK3JFK, Australian National D-Star Coordinator, has posted this email:

Hi,

The Australian Communications & Media Authority (ACMA) has released the new Australian Amateur regulations which will come into force on the 11th or 12th of February.

In summary, here are the main changes that effect the DV-Dongle.

Amendments to the regulations include the following:
The prohibition on the connection of automated systems to a public telecommunications network, which includes the Internet, has been removed.

The prohibition of third party traffic has been removed and the onus has been put on the receiver of the third party traffic to ensure it is legal in the receivers country.

There is now a clear requirement that a person operating through a repeater must be licensed to operate on the repeaters output frequency.

An amateur station connecting a device to the to a public telecommunications network, which includes the Internet must provide an in-band announcement every 10 minutes to the extent that communications on the connection is public and could be monitored. Repeaters are excluded from this clause.

These changes now mean that the DV-Dongle will be legal in Australia from the 11th or 12th of February. (Please visit the ACMA web site for the exact dates and full details http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/HOMEPAGE/PC=HOME )

Cheers

Richard VK3JFK
Australian National D-Star Coordinator

DV Dongle Information including Installation, Operation (with D-STAR Gateways) and Technical Information & Architecture http://www.dvdongle.com/

Open D-STAR
http://opendstar.org/