New Zealand Foundation licence discussed with MED

The introduction of an Amateur Radio Foundation license was one of the topics discussed in a meeting between NZART and New Zealand regulator MED.

The meeting was held on Wednesday 9 April between Wayne Wedderspoon, Ministry of Economic Development (MED) and Don Wallace, Administration Liaison Officer (ALO) of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART).

On the Entry Level Licence the meeting report says:

Don noted that NZART is looking at the possibility of introducing an entry level amateur licence to NZ similar to those in the UK and Australia and asked what the MED's attitude would be to a request for such a licence in NZ. Don also left a copy of the Australian manual with Wayne so he could see how the system operates there.

Wayne replied that the Foundation Licence concept in both the UK and Australia appeared to have been very successful. He thought that such a request would be received positively but would need to be carefully differentiated from the (cancelled) novice licence.

He noted that this would probably require:

* amendments to Schedule 4 of the Radiocommunications regulations to accommodate the new certificate and its syllabus (not likely before next year);

* amendments to the GURL to add the additional certificate and to state which frequencies are to be used (relatively simple to implement);

* a new range of callsigns in PIB46 (relatively simple to implement);

* an additional licence class in SMART for Approved Radio Examiners to issue (relatively simple to implement);

Meeting Report http://www.nzart.org.nz/nzart/update/infoline/infoline-160.html#il1602

New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters (NZART) http://www.nzart.org.nz/