NEWS UPDATE –

You may be aware that there have recently been some amateur radio licencing difficulties experienced in the Falkland Islands due to new communications legislation being implemented. This involved all previous and existing VP8 licences issued under the old Falkland Islands Wireless Telegraphy Act being revoked en masse in early 2020. This included all existing VP8 Antarctic and South Georgia licences, resulting in no legal amateur radio operation in these Overseas Territories being permitted using a VP8 callsign.  Licences were then revalidated and re-issued under the new Falkland Islands Communications Ordinance on a case-by-case basis for use in the Falkland Islands only.

We now have some good news from the UK’s regulatory body, OFCOM concerning this situation. [read more..]

OCTOBER 27, 2020 – Non-resident lifetime Falkland Islands VP8 licences – common sense prevails. [read more..]

OCTOBER 4, 2020 – The following are quotes from an open letter written by several high profile VP8 license holders / operators. 

As far as we are aware, none of these lifetime VP8 Antarctic / South Georgia licences has been re-validated, so it is presumed that the Regulator has in effect revoked them and these rare and much sought after callsigns are no longer valid.

In other words, the Regulator had no authority to assume that all existing overseas lifetime VP8 Antarctic and South Georgia licences had expired, nor was he empowered to revoke any of them. However, it seems evident that he has nevertheless done so.

The current situation is that, whether accidental or not, the Regulator’s recent licence re-validation exercise has rendered all existing VP8 amateur radio activity in BAT and SG&SSI illegal, leaving all current lifetime VP8 BAT and SG&SSI licence holders in a state of confusion.