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Question to
Dr. Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General |
Version 3. Jan. 2010 |
Folgende Frage wurde via Sektion Zug USKA anlässlich
der Teilnahme von Dr. Touré an den Festlichkeiten in Salvan vorbereitet.
Die Antwort hätte nach ursprünglichem Plan mündlich direkt in Salvan
erfolgen sollen - nun müssen wir uns aber wohl auf eine schriftliche
Antwort gedulden (Hr. Dr. Touré musste bekanntlich leider früher als
vorgesehen abreisen).
Question to The Honorable
Dr Hamadoun Touré, ITU Secretary-General
A new threat
to amateur radio service has emerged.
Countries in
Europe, including Switzerland, increase regulations concerning consumer
electronics, for example by ultimatively demanding that all equipment
carry the european "CE mark", supposedly as a proof for product safety.
The intention to protect "end users" from dangers is well understood and
generally accepted practice, and is out of question here.
However, as
Switzerland shows, this restrictive government policy is now applied and
extended also to all amateur radio equipment including homebuilt
equipment and any equipment modified by the radio amateur himself.
Besides other measures, Switzerland goes as far as to forbid the resale
of used old amateur equipment and the resale of modified or homebuilt
equipment, unless it is CE-certified by an authorized certification
office. Which makes no sense for radio amateurs as they are technically
well qualified individuals, often electronic engineers. Radio amateurs
are not "end users".
This
unfortunate development of things is of course also a direct consequence
of the shift of regulatory control from the old technology oriented
PTT's which honoured and favoured amateur radio in every respect, to the
merely purely lawmaking and law enforcement authorities like Bakom in
Switzerland, with no technical and experimental interests whatsoever. As
a matter of fact, amateur radio risks to be neglected completely by
those authorities due to their almost complete focus on telecom
liberalisation issues.
These new,
excessively strict regulations massively threaten the experimental
character and freedom that radio amateurs possessed from the beginning
since Marconi. ITU RR 1.56 says explicitely that "technical
investigations" are a vital part of the concept of amateur radio. This
means unrestricted freedom of technical experimentation within safety
limits, and unrestricted trade and exchange of equipment and
experimental setups at least within the radio amateur and engineering
community.
It comes as a
surprise that this old right of radio amateurs is now jeopardized and
sabotaged by the lawmakers, as recently seen in Switzerland.
Most of the
technically oriented radio amateurs do not even dream of abiding by
these new laws. Hassle, confrontations and lawsuits between amateurs and
authorities are thus pre-programmed.
What can the
ITU undertake to support us radio amateurs in this issue, and to help us
regain our old freedom and rights to freely exercise technical
experiments again as we were used to for decades ?
Can ITU
politely remind the Swiss Bakom authority of the importance of amateur
radio service, with all it's privileges, as being a decisive factor to
give our youth and young engineers a chance to fully discover, develop
and enjoy their technical skills and abilities ?
Thank you very
much for your attention and consideration.
Willi
Vollenweider, M.Sc., HB9AMC
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