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![]() KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog /////////////////////////////////////////// Should U.S. amateur radio license exams be given outside the U.S.? Posted: 16 Sep 2016 12:18 PM PDT http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email I hope you all wont think Im being jingoistic here, but I wonder why the FCC allows foreign nationalsat least those who arent residing in the U.S. to hold U.S. amateur radio licenses. The reason this has come to my attention is that this morning I received an e-mail from a reader, who pointed to an interesting thread on the HamRadioHelpGroup Yahoo group. He wanted my take on the situation. It starts out with this e-mail: American in Italy, trying to study for tech license and discovering Tue Sep 13, 2016 10:10 pm (PDT) Hello everyone, Im an American college professor living in Italy, studying for the technician license. I just recently joined this group. As someone with a non-science background, Im still struggling a bit to figure out what the heck Im doing. And now Im emailing you all because I dont know WHAT to do about the mess I have accidentally stumbled on here in Italy, involving routine, mind-blowing fraud at Hamfest ARRL test-sessions. Id appreciate suggestions- -and you are welcome to forward this to anybody you may know at ARRL. Heres the deal. Test-sessions are rare events in Italy, according to the ARRL find a test-session in your area web-page. And whenever one occurs in any city, its invariably on a weekend when I have to work! In any case, whenever I finally manage it, its going to involve taking trains and staying overnight in a hotel. Fine. I heard of one in the Brescia area on Sept 3 (I couldnt go), and I emailed the person whose contact info was provided, asking if there would be any other sessions coming up. His initials are VR. VR responded and seemed nice enough. I initially wrote to him in English, although we ended up writing in Italian. A couple of days later, this same VR emailed me and asked me if I could help him translate some info into English for him to send to ARRL. He told me about some guy from Cosenza (down south in mafia-land), who is a former VE for ARRL who was already banned for irregularities. His initials are AC, except that he uses multiple names! AC fraudulently got another license under another name, and has been regularly participating at hamfests as a VE although he has no authorization to do this. (Btw, welcome to Italy, where this is business-as- usual. Im southern Italian myself, so I can say that.) VR wanted to write this all up in good English, provide all the documentation (he somehow got photos of doctored test-sheets, photographs, etc.), and send it to ARRL. And since my English is better than his, he wanted me to do it for him. Fine, whatever. I spent several hours sorting out the whole mess, which clearly involves multiple Italian hams who work together at test-sessions and game the system. The scam theyve devised is actually pretty clever and quite complicated. Among other things, they have added names of people who werent there, indicating that they passed an exam; theyll do this for you if you pay them 50-60 Euros. VR was hysterical about the criminality of this. He ranted to me on the phone about it at great length. And he was so grateful for my help, that he told me at some point if I cant make it to a regularly scheduled test-session, he can arrange for a special one. And if I get stuck on a question while Im taking the exam, I can ask and he can help me with the answer. As I said, welcome to Italy. Well, after I wrote everything up in good English, and sent it to VR to email to ARRL, I thought that was the end of it. But a day later VR emailed me again (!), and said hed spoken to yet another Italian ham who used to be a VE. His initial is F, dont know his last name. Apparently F got expelled as an ARRL VE at the same time as AC from Cosenza, for irregularities. But F claimed he was innocent and wrongly got punished. F is a buddy of VR and VR believes him. So now VR wants me to write up ANOTHER huge email to ARRL in English, and provide all sorts of documentation to vindicate his buddy F, so F can get his VE status back. It doesnt appear that he even sent ARRL the first email I translated for him. Are you confused yet? Bottom line: look, I just want to take the dang technician test as soon as possible, and take it honestly. But these Italian VEs for ARRL are apparently a den of fraudsters. Even if I had nothing else to do all day but translate complicated stuff into English for free, I dont want to get mixed up in this! On top of everything else, it has become evident to me from all this garbage that there are many more ARRL test-sessions in Italy every year that are not listed on the ARRL site. Why is that? Are these other test-sessions legit? If they are, why cant I find them when I search ARRL online? The only test-sessions that show up, seem to be the ones proctored by VR. And now if I dont help VR translate this stuff, and I end up eventually taking the test at a session he proctors, he may very well fail me for spite. Because thats what Italian professors do (remember that I am a professor myself, I know too well how they work!). HELP! What do I do? Unfortunately flying back to the U.S. to deal with sane, normal people is not an option. Kind regards, Catherine My reader also forwarded a couple of the replies, both from Australians. One of them noted that he thought it was easier to get a U.S. Tech license than the equivalent Australian Foundation license, so some Australians get a U.S. Tech license first, then get the Australian government to issue them a VK Foundation license based on the reciprocal operating agreement between the U.S. and Australia. Plus, this commenter writes, there is a loophole where a U.S. foundation level licence (Technician) can be used to get an [Australian] Advanced licence (U.S. Extra equivalent). As you can see, the original poster is quite worked up over this. I probably would be, too, if I were in her shoes. The whole Italian operation seems shady, and since she doesnt know the Italian VEs personally, she really doesnt know what shes getting involved in. I can’t really say that I’m surprised by this state of affairs. If anything, it’s kind of amazing that here in the U.S. there isn’t more test fraud. My reader asked for my opinion, and without going into a lot of deep thinking on this, here are a few thoughts: I often get customers for my study guides from outside the U.S. About a year ago, I swapped some e-mail with a guy from Malaysia about why he purchased my study guide and why he wanted a U.S. license. He said that it was because a neighboring country offered reciprocal operating privileges to U.S. licensees, but not Malaysian licensees! He mentioned that he tested for the license in Thailand. Another reason that some outside the U.S. obtain U.S. amateur radio licenses is the challenge. Thats the reason Martin Butler, M0MRB/W9ICQ, of ICQPodcast fame, gave when I spoke to him about this recently. That being the case, I dont fault my Malaysian friend nor my English friend from wanting to obtain a U.S. license, but theres still something about this that doesnt sit right with me. I think someone should forward this information to the ARRL VEC staff. I asked my reader if anyone has, and if not, I plan to do so. Perhaps one reason the that she can’t find these test sessions listed on the ARRL website is that I don’t think the ARRL requires that VEs list every test session on the ARRL website. It also might be that these Italian exams are being coordinated through another VEC. I haven’t thought through all the ramifications, but I’d be inclined to not allow testing for U.S. amateur radio licenses to be conducted outside the U.S. At the very least, I don’t think we should allow foreign nationals to conduct test sessions. I don’t see the advantage to the U.S. in allowing foreign nationals who do not live in the U.S. to hold a U.S. amateur radio license or conduct U.S. amateur radio license test sessions. I’m OK with issuing U.S. licenses to foreign nationals who do live in the U.S., but if they move out of the U.S. their licenses should probably be revoked. The U.S. Tech test may be an easier way into the hobby than the Australian Foundation exam, but so what? The question is whether or not the U.S. Tech test is too easy. Since today’s Tech license is yesterday’s Novice license, I don’t think so. The difficulty of the Tech test and any possible fraud in the amateur radio license examination process are two different issues. While there certainly does seem to be some flagrant rules violations here, is it really that big a deal that a few Italians have U.S. callsigns that they shouldn’t have? What are the ramifications, really? I would be interested in hearing what you all think about this. I will post any response that I get from the ARRL, if they do respond at all. The post Should U.S. amateur radio license exams be given outside the U.S.? appeared first on KB6NUs Ham Radio Blog. |
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