WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Can't beat some ham at Christmas-time

The course itself is very reasonably priced in my opinion, especially when you experience it first hand and realise just what you're getting out of it...

$18 for the book (posted to you),
$25 for the course (two full days, tea and coffee included, BYO lunch)
$10 for the cost of renting the premises the course is held at.
$35 for the exam (fee set by the Wireless Institute of Australia)
$61 for the licence (fee set by the government)

The total cost to get an amateur licence then is $149, with ongoing costs of renewing the licence at $61 per year.

There's a couple of other optional costs as well -

$75 for membership of the WIA, the group that represents Australian amateurs to the government and overseas bodies, etc.

$17 to become a member of the WA Repeater Group, the organisation of Western Australian amateurs who install and maintain the various amateur repeaters around Perth and the rest of WA.

All-in-all it's a bit of money to stump up front, and you've got to have one complete weekend free and then the following Saturday to sit your exam.

But it's well worth it, you get to interact with others instead of passive listening, and it opens up a whole field of new stuff that you probably didn't even realise existed before now

Thanks Rob and Doug,

Was more the cost of the equipment, I suppose you're right, I got a CB which is in my car but mainly use that when in convoy with one or more of my good mates. I think once I've done all my assesment tasks for my Cert 4 Training and Assessing, this will be my next assignment.
Cheers,

Yeah the expensive part probably does start once you've got your licence - there's way too many goodies out there

But it doesn't have to be expensive. These little handhelds are pretty good value for what they are:

LINK

Yep - and even more expensive when they need repairs!

Looks like the Simplex Repeater 'gets out' pretty well everywhere... According to the reports on WARG (Heard on Air) Website it has been heard in Geraldton and Dunsborough... Very interesting

Cheers, CC

ConstableCare wrote:Looks like the Simplex Repeater 'gets out' pretty well everywhere... According to the reports on WARG (Heard on Air) Website it has been heard in Geraldton and Dunsborough... Very interesting

It does work very well!

I think the power supply isn't coping too well, there's an audible whine on the output of the two voice repeaters. Time I had a look, I suppose.

It was suffering a bit of interference last week, maybe the mute needs to be turned up