Amateur Radio Service Rules in India Amended!!!!

Finally the Govt of India official gazette concerning amateur radio operators has been published by Wireless Planning and Co-ordination department . Amateur Radio in India is governed by Telegraphy Rules and WPC works under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Primarily WPC site tells that there have been two amendements to the rules after1978, one through Gazette Notifications GSR 385(E) on 9th July 2005 & otherthrough the recent GSR 280(E)dated 1st april 2010. The only link WPC has posted is of 2009 amendment and not the 2005 one. Not sure if anyone has got the link for 385(E)2005 amendment which was not published in the gazette for longtime , all our search yielded not results.

First Amendment: THE INDIAN WIRELESS TELEGRAPH (AMATEUR SERVICE) AmendmentRules, 2005 . Gazette Notification GSR 385(E), but no copy available.The key changes that have been made in this 2005 amendment are:

1. Category of license From earlier four categories, the new rules have mergedGrade I and Advanced as General, while Grade II and Restricted have been clubbedtogether as Restricted Grade.

2. Fees Structure Instead of 5 year renewal cycle, amateur radio operators cannow apply for 20 years or lifelong license. They would have to pay INR 1000 for20 years or INR 2000 for life long application.

Second Amendment: THE INDIAN WIRELESS TELEGRAPH (AMATEUR SERVICE) AmendmentRules, 2009 , GSR 280(E). The key changes that have been made in this 2009 amendment are:

1. In rule 8 , sub rule (1), which stated "The examinations for the grant of a licence shall be held at a place and on adate as may be notified by the Central Government from time to time"

amended to as below

"The examinations for the grant of a licence as per syllabus shall be held at aplace and on a date as may be notified by the Central Government from time totime".

2. Rule 13 which says "A holder of licence shall use, as appropriate to thelicence, such frequency bands, power and classes of emission as are set out inAnnexure V of these rules"

amended to as below

"A holder of licence shall use, as appropriate to the licence, such frequencybands, power and classes of emission as authorised by the central government"

Annexure V talks of all the different freq bands in VHF/UHF/HF allotted toAmateurs in India, question is if Annexure V is no more valid what's the newfrequency allocation and when that would be published in the gazette.

3. Annexure- I, II, V which are basically application forms has been ommitted,not word on which forms to be used moving forward.The 2005 amendment made some sense, not sure the objective behind cosmeticamendments in 2009, which seem to be only causing confusion.

Vipin , SWL

ChennaiHamsBlogspot Team