Anyone know of specific web pages related to VHF regs and licensing for the following countries?:

Shetlands

Scotland

United Kingdom

Mexico

Google has been useless.

Adam:

I don't believe you need to bother with the licensing requirements in other countries as I doubt you would be able to acquire a license as a foreign visitor. Rather the issue is what licenses do you need from the FCC to legally operate a VHF marine radio from your boat at "sea" to communicate with stations in other countries. I believe a voluntary vessels and those aboard them never need a license to communicate with other vessels at "sea" regardless of their location.

I have not looked at the regs lately, but my memeory is you will need a Restricted Radiotelephone Operator's License and a station license as well. I believe both can be obtained by doing nothing more than filling out forms or at most answering some very basic questions. This assumes you are talking about using the radio with a kayak which is referred to as a "voluntary" vessel as the rules for involuntary vessels are quite different.

This should give you the info you need and how to apply for the requisite licenses.

http://wireless.fcc.gov/marine/fctsht14.html#SEC2

Ed Lawson

Hmm.. Google no good. A challenge. OK, found a fair amount of stuff with this query...

VHF license UK

which I assume covers Scotland and the Shetlands as well. I didn't read it very carefully, but offhand it looks like you need a license in theory but not in practice.

Mexico -- I'll leave that one to you, señor. ;-)))

--David.

Scotland and the Shetlands part-and-parcel of the United Kingdom! Scotland may have home-rule; but it is still UK, along with Wales and Northern Ireland!

I found guidelines for NZ via goggle. Too bad you are coming up empty for those countries.

As a suggestion, I should have brought my VHF manual with me, cause there was a special, unfigure-outable way to switch over to international useage.

In NZ there were mushy regulations but all the outfitters just said use judiciously. If I could have, I would have.

Karen