A while back, I commented on a QSL I’d received from the club station of the UBA, the Belgian equivalent of the ARRL. I noted:
One factoid really struck me. The UBA says that 95% of the licensed amateurs in Belgium belong to the UBA. As a point of reference, less than 25% of licensed amateurs here belong to the ARRL.
A Belgian ham recently read this and sent me the following comment:
In Belgium, there is only one IARU society (UBA) that has access to the IARU QSL “buro”. This means that as a Belgian ham you need to be a member of the UBA in order to use the in/out buro. This is a free and unlimited service comprised in the UBA membership fee (abt. 34 US$ per year).
While this is in fact a QSL monopoly, there is no one really opposing the situation. Except for a handful of people who’d rather see an exclusively Flemish organization, as part of two societies based on linguistic factors and following the structure of our governments. Yes, plural: “Flemish”, “Walloon”, and a national federal government, plus a special statuts for Brussels Capitol.
That equals 4 governments, each with a parliament and a president (prime minister). There is a German part in there too somewhere, yet this is only a small community in Belgium. Then there’s the monarchy, though our king has an almost exclusive ceremonial function – he only has to sign the laws made by each of the governments. Complex, ues, but it rules out the option of a civil war in order to gain independence.
But I get carried away. The UBA does a lot for its members like dealing with the telecom regulators to get more privileges and the UBA QSL buro is working flawlessly. So that is why the vast majority of Belgian hams are member of the UBA (currently 3000 members). But the UBA is perfectly aware of the fact that the number of members will be reduced should the QSL monopoly cease to exist.
So I hope the 95% figure makes some more sense now.
Well, here in the U.S. hams can receive QSLs from the bureau, but still must be ARRL members to send them via the bureau. That being the case, I think the 95% figure is still outstanding.
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