SOTA in Taiwan

Hi all,
I saw that there are quite a few SOTA summits in Taiwan, since the establishment of the Taiwan SOTA association in November:

https://www.sota.org.uk/Association/BV

I have been to Taiwan a couple of times and still have some of the beautiful mountains on my list. Now, unfortunately, it seems impossible for a visitor to do SOTA operations in Taiwan, because

  • Taiwan is no CEPT country (likely due to the One-China policy of many countries), and
  • temporary licenses are only possible for using the station of a Taiwanese operator.

You are not allowed to bring own ham radio gear, and I could also not find out whether portable operations with gear from and under supervision of a licensed Taiwanese operator is legally possible. My reading of

http://www.ctarl.org.tw/bv5ya/english_old/introduce2.htm

is that you can only operate from the hosting Taiwanese operator’s home station.

Has anyone more information on this?

73 de Martin, DK3IT

/CC Huawei Su, @BX2AI

EDIT: The only option I see would be to obtain legal resident status and pass the Taiwanese exam, but this is in Chinese only, afaik.

Hi Martin,

A lot of Asian countries fit this description. Off the top of my head, BV, B, HS and YB all require operation only at the station of a local - YB is stricter in only allowing operation at the station of a member of the Indonesian equivalent of DARC. If I recall correctly, HS takes so long to get a license and you can only apply while physically there, that most people’s holiday finishes before they get there.

Most of this is related to political considerations - a random foreigner on a summit sending morse is indistinguishable from a foreign spy on a summit sending morse.

HL will do 3 month visitor licenses, but they are not CEPT aligned and it relies on there being recip. agreements. Japan is similar (no CEPT) but has a broader list of reciprocal agreements.

Hi Martin,

Our political dilemma prevents us from being recognized by or participating in a lot of international programs/organizations such as CEPT.

Currently, the only way for foreign ham to legally operate in Taiwan is to apply a Temporary Operating Permit, and you have to have a “sponsor” who is a licensed ham in Taiwan and willing to lend you his/her rig. Refer here for detail information and procedure.

73 de BX2AFU

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