The UBA wishes all foreign radio amateurs and their families, who plan to visit our beautiful country, a very pleasant stay. We feel sure you will enjoy this multicultural country, where most people speak at least two, and many 4 or 5 languages. Communicating in English will be no problem!

Belgium complies with the CEPT Recommendation TR61-01 and 02 and if your country does as well, the licensing procedure will be quite easy:

If you have a radio amateur license with the CEPT mention (CEPT TR61-01), and if your stay is not longer than 3 months you can operate a radio amateur station using your own call preceded "ON/" (ON slash your call). Example: if your call is W1XYZ you will use the call ON/W1XYZ.
If you plan to stay longer than 3 months and if you hold a HAREC operator certificate (CEPT TR61-02), you can apply for a Belgian Callsign, which probably will be a ON9-call. Contact BIPT/IBPT, the Belgian regulatory body regarding radio licenses.
If your PTT administration didn't sign the CEPT agreements, you can ask for a special guest license. Send an inquiry letter with a photocopy of your license to BIPT/IBPT. In any case you should include a photocopy of your licence together with the study program relating to the radio amateur examination in your country. The whole procedure may take quite a while and no guarantee of success.

Rules and regulations:
Whichever way you obtained your license to operate from Belgium, you will have to stick with the Belgian rules of the game! The main rules concern frequencies and power levels (see below). The Basic license up to 440 MHZ (with the exception of 50 MHz) allows for 150 Watt output on all HF bands, but anyone can obtain a 1 KW output license by simply informing the BIPT/IBPT. For 50 MHz and the VHF/UHF frequencies above 440 MHz the basic power limit is 50 W (with a possibility of using 200 W provided declaration). The rules are similar in most European countries. By the way, third part traffic is not (yet) allowed.

There are no borders between EEC countries, you can bring and take out anything you want within the EEC. Visitors from outside the EEC bringing valuable equipment into Belgium should declare the equipment and bring a copy of the equipment's invoice. There will be no custom duties to be paid however. While the CEPT TR61-01, the HAREC certificate or a guest license allows you to operate in Belgium, it gives you no special privilege to import your radio amateur equipment. We advise you do declare your equipment upon entry in this country.

The UBA is the Royal National Society of Belgian radio amateurs, and the Belgian IARU member society.
Membership in UBA, including a subscription to CQ-QSO and full outgoing and incoming QSL service is available to everyone. The current membership rate is €45 per year.

The UBA magazine, "CQ-QSO" is bilingual (Dutch and French) and is published bimonthly. The UBA is organized in more than 80 local clubs (UBA sections). If you have a free evening, please come along to visit one of our local clubs, you will be more than welcome!