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"It would be necessary to get a certificate of citizenship. This took years and during those years I landed up in the Dom. Republic & got my Ham ticket there without it, HI3XRD.""

Thank you very much for pointing that out. I'm in Australia and I've often pointed to the fact that many countries restricted access to the radio spectrum for many reasons—to limit EMI, for state security and strategic reasons, ensure secrecy of communications, etc.

For example, when I got my amateur ticket whilst still at school in the 1960s I had to sign a Declaration of Secrecy and have it witnessed by a registered JP. The reason was that people such as us could come across important transmissions (messages) of a strategic nature that should not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

Come mobile phones, WiFi etc. that changed without any real public discussion whatsoever.

What I find absolutely amazing is how—by sleight-of-hand—Big Tech sideslipped both very tight telephony and radiocommunications laws to violate say privacy on smartphones, and the fact that they've gotten away with it. The smartphone generation hasn't a clue about any of this stuff. Right, once the privacy of telephonic communications was inviolable, now it's a fucking joke.

On the matter of the declaration of secrecy, amateurs could possibly come across unencrypted telephonic communications, ship-to-shore etc., and as deemed secret, they (rightly) were not allowed to act on that information in any way, in fact jail-time penalties applied if laws were violated.

Incidentally, as my Declaration of Secrecy has never been rescinded I'm still bound by its conditions.




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