[Elecraft] foreign travel with radios

[Mark Bayern]

You should at the UAE to the list.

I showed up in Dubai at about 1AM with an HT in my carryone.  BIG MISTAKE!

After a lengthy time with the customs and the local police, they held
the HT and let me enter.

I managed to get the HT back as I left -- the customs officer watched
me place it in my checked baggage and watched it go down the conveyor
out of my reach.

He also was the first one who was willing to admit to speaking enough
English to converse with me. I asked what is the problem with the
radio? His answer, "some of them can receive the police frequencies,
and cell phone frequencies".  I admitted, that yes it probably could
receive the police stuff.  I got a laugh when I told him, "but I
wouldn't understand any of it". I carefully didn't tell him that the
thing would also transmit on those frequencies.

I shouldn't have brought the thing with me. The trip was one of those
very hurried and unplanned service calls in the oil industry. I tried
looking for licensing info in the UAE but didn't find any ... figuring
that the country was so open in other ways I decided to take the HT
with me and check on the licensing issue when I arrived. The thing is
also handy for monitoring the VHF marine channels and VHF/UHF business
band stuff that we use on board an oil-rig.

...anyway... The UAE doesn't appear to allow foreigners to operate
Amateur radio, and it REALLY doesn't want anything that looks like a
VHF HT in the country.

----

Another country that asks on entry about radio transmitters is
mainland China a/k/a The Peoples Republic of China. I have never taken
anything in and never asked if I could ... I just know their entry
form asks the question, and sometimes the customs officer asks.

Mark AD5SS



On 6/5/07, Charles Harpole <k4vud at hotmail.com> wrote:
> There may be a difference between importing and register of a transmitter in
> any one country or another and just passing thru with it.
>
> I have taken my IC 706 thru several countries where it may or may not be
> allowed but separate it into 2 parts and move on thru the airports to
> another destination.  Staying somewhere with it is another matter for
> individual discretion, of course.
>
> Countries I know about with limits on carrying transmitters into their
> borders....
> Thailand
> Burma
> Lao (Laos)
> Cambodia
> India
> Bhutan
> Nepal
>
> just to name a few.
>
> Why are nations nervious abt xmitters in private hands?  Well, fighters in
> Burma are reported to use ham rigs for military traffic.  Certainly, the ham
> bands in SEAsia are cluttered with non-licensed operations using ham rigs
> for private telephone-like use.  Sometimes more of that on 20m more than
> licensed ham uses!  At least they use the "other" sideband.
>
> 73
> Charles Harpole, HS0ZCW (VU3CHE, A52UD, XW1UD, 9N7UD, V26V,  ETC.)
> k4vud at hotmail.com
>
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