How to get an amateur radio license in Austria

I’m not the casual ham radio operator that always wanted to operate his own ham radio station. I tried CB once but had to travel quite a bit to reach other stations (trucks on the highway for example). I’ve played with SDR before and tried a few things with GNUradio and gqrx but I never got deeper into this kind of things.

In 2019 I decided to go on a preparatory course at the local ham radio club.

A confirmation email was sent to me but the docs for the course had to be changed because changes have been made to austrian laws regarding ham radio and telecommunication in general. So scripts were not up to date at that moment.

General information #

The course was held in a room in a federal higher technical institute in Innsbruck.

We had to attend these blocks:

1. block

• Friday, September 27, (15:00 to 20:30)
  introduction and law pt 1
• Saturday, September 28, (09:00 to 18:00)
  law pt 2 and engineering pt 1

2. block

• Friday, October 4, (15:00 to 20:30)
  operating technology pt 1
• Saturday, October 5, (09:00 to 18:00)
  engineering pt 2

3. block

• Friday, October 11, (15:00 to 20:30)
  engineering pt 3
• Saturday, October 12, (09:00 to 18:00)
  engineering pt 4 and operating technology pt 2

4. block – refreshing

• Saturday, October 19, (13:00 to 17:00)
  simulation of an exam (it was highly recommended to visit this training)

Cost report #

This represents the total amount of money I had to put into getting my license.

In the end I paid 203.60€ for gasoline, 27€ for lunch on Saturdays and 110.60€ for parking my car.
At this time I drove a BMW M140i which needed around 9 liters gas per 100 kilometers – you may get away with less on that part.

The exam #

The exam is split into three different topics: law, engineering and operating technology.

Every person gets three questions in law, three questions in engineering and three questions in operating technology. This happens one person at a time, so if person 1 answered the first three questions person 2 has to answer three other questions in the same topic.

We had to leave the room for a while when our examiners discussed our results. When we entered the room again we were told if we get a license or not 😉

All attendees have passed the exam and got their license. We were 15 people.

Future plans #

Most of us have already requested their callsign. A workshop about different transeivers and antennas is planned for November 23 in Innsbruck from 09:00 to 18:00. At 19:00 a graduation party is planned at the restaurant Deck 47 in Innsbruck.

I joined the local ham radio club ÖVSV and I am a member of ADL714.

My shack is growing slowly. I own a few devices that allow me to setup a small station on short wave and on the digital sector within the DMR Austria network (IPSC2) and YSF (C4FM).

73 de Dominic, OE7DRT

Leaving the Austrian Amateur Radio League #

I am no member of the Austrian Amateur Radio League since the end of 2022.

As per requirement of the club I sent the letter via Austrian Post as a registered letter (I also get notified when the letter is marked as delivered).

The letter has been brought to the post office on 14 October 2022, and finally delivered on 18 October 2022. I wanted a confirmation (which I stated in the letter) but I got none (not until today, 12 February 2023).

As of today, I can only assume it was read (and understood) which (I guess) makes a confirmation unnecessary (as of today). A confirmation would have been nice and I thought normal people do that anyway (but I also left a notice in the letter).

I find this behavior unprofessional and also a bit pathetic. I’ve held more on the club before, but just ignoring people is not something that I can support easily.

People often do not show their real faces when you encounter them for the first time, but as always: time will tell.