KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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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.?
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