Operating a UNICOM is so easy!
A friend has a country airstrip which uses a MULTICOM of 126.7. They want to have a hand-held transceiver in the hangar that the manager can use to give a UNICOM service. Can anyone advise whether a licence is required for this, and how you actually get the licence?
My office got into the Airservices site which states a radio communications apparatus licence is required from the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The Airservices site included links to AMCA apparatus licence form R057 and additional station information form R077. One of the links was to a form for a ‘low power narrowcasting variation, narrowband area service and high frequency broadcasting service’, which appears to be incorrect.
AMCA appears to have an application form for an ‘Aeronautical Assigned System apparatus licence’ which doesn’t seem right for a MULTICOM, and a general ‘Application for apparatus licence’ which seems more likely.
Also, the figures seem to be stupendous. You need to pay $345 to AMCA to issue an assigned licence, plus an aeronautical assignment fee to Airservices of $260.70, and there is an annual tax fee. The AMCA fee schedule document is 59 pages long!
It is clearly the least user-friendly system I have ever seen.
Lots of hand-helds are being sold which are used on the ground as (in effect) UNICOMs. Are they all operating illegally?
What we need to know is if the station has to be licensed, and does the operator need to have a separate licence? What training and qualifications are required for the operator if that is so? Also, at many secondary airports the refueller has a UNICOM. Has this transmitter been licensed, and is each operator separately licensed – or is that something different?