Can someone help me to find a place to buy a Sangean shortwave radio SG-622?

Don’t know about Mitsubishi, but Sony sells a lot of things directly.

I don’t. I don’t want to go through the whole process of giving the test in Chinese. I was wondering if there are any class of radios that you can use here without a licence.

Who is going to mess with you if you aren’t certified anyways?

As long as you aren’t using military frequencies, I doubt anyone would ever bother to notice.

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haha. not really. If you’re simply receiving, then you won’t face an issue. But transmission of any kind of licensed bands is enforced around most of the world. I don’t wanna face fines or potentially be deported.

https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=K0060032

I’ve been using handheld two-way radios here for decades. What’s the legal status of those?

who’s on the other end? How far away? Which parts of Taiwan?

It’s enforced for foreigners only. There’s a class of ham radio operators who are not licensed and they are called sausages.

A while back there was a guy who came from East Germany who eventually became licensed here.
He got license because the locals were giving him heck for operating unlicensed.
Then he got licensed and he found himself fighting the unlicensed people.
He wrote some pretty good articles but unfortunately due to some family issues he seem to have disappeared and I cannot find any of his writings…

He wrote a good blog on what it was like being a foreigner taking the local test.
But I forgot his call signs and his real name. He was an Engineer and had a German restaurant in Kaohsiung.
I never met him because my kids were too young and I lived too far from the city to come into the city for socialization

Believe it or not the CB radio band is legal here. Check out the allocations. But I cannot find anybody selling a radio.
I contacted some factories that make them here but they said they will only sell it to United States or Europe.
Again my Chinese is very limited so I can only carry the conversation as far as their English will take it.

I think it would be great if we can form regional for Forumosa clubs, convince some manufacturers to sell us some radios.
Think of it, the entire 27 megahertz band is sparsely populated and we can get some good range out of it.

I kind of miss the old days of having friends take shifts monitoring one radio channel and giving travelers information. Everyone having their own cell phone doesn’t help for group cohesiveness.

But to continue the original topic, can anyone recommend a low price shortwave receiver, second hand or otherwise that can just pull in the look Asian broadcast stations.
Has anybody experimented with the cheap USB SDR.
For those of you with VHF radios, this file may be interesting.

That seems expensive for a second hand Baofeng, check out pricing on PC Home or Ruten

All over Taiwan with friends and family. Range about 2~3 miles.

I seen Carrefour and other big retailers use them. So they have to get it from somewhere. But if you really can’t find it, Taobao will have what you need (but I really do not know Taiwan’s regulation regarding import of radio transmitters, even wifi stuff is regulated).

This looks like a CB radio. Range of 1-15km.

Don’t try contacting any factories in Taiwan to buy something. They are simply not set up for direct sales and only sell to their distributors. Not many want to sell factory direct and cut out the middlemen and I believe many may be under contract not to sell outside of distributors. Remember many factories in Taiwan are OEM meaning they have contract clause to deal with.

This one requires a class 3 license…

Nice. Which model do you use? Where did you buy it?

Those are great radios. But the same problem exists.

They’re all “Ham Radio”, class 3 license as you said.
Though the requirement for the licenses seem to not be required for citizens, foreigners who tried to interact seem to get trouble.

Not from everybody but there are people who would be willing to report you.

I’m also really interested in interacting with locals as my family is not into Radios. So, I want a legal way.

As far as I know, CB is legal but it’s hard to find radios. If we as a group can find enough radios we have a perfectly usable band.

I asked the factory why they don’t sell to Taiwan and they just told me that the people don’t want it. The antennas are too big and it’s not practical for Taiwan… the suggested I go UHF or VHF but come up we have this Foreigner legal pickle.

Now can someone please suggest a good shortwave radio that’s not too expensive or anybody interested in trying to get onto two way radio who lives in the Kaohsiung area, please contact me.

I’d love to form a club but I don’t want transmit without licence.

My mom included them them in a box of my father’s old stuff she sent to Taiwan a long time ago. They are Motorola, but not sure which model. They are beat up and held together with duct and electrical tape now.

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Maybe the Taiwan secret service came into your house, examined it and decided you’re not a threat :rofl:

I suspect most people but the most diehard radio fans will not want to use ham radios… I mean why bother? LINE and other chat apps allow instant communication without having to go through the hassle of licensing and all that.

You just have to look at the right places… but the requirement for a license is a law, just that it seems not enforced on locals…

It’s like why bother with sports fishing boat when you can just go to Carrefour.

Motorola? I don’t remember Motorola being ham radio. They’re mainly a business radio brand.
What frequencies does your Motorola radio use?
Here in Taiwan I saw in the yellow 3C chain, two kinds of License Free Radios.

  1. The normal FRS radios. They are low power.

  2. FRS + extended channels and higher power.
    In the US FRS shares channels with the general Mobile radio service which is the business band.
    Again I cannot (no money $$$) buy those radios nor have any experience with them so I don’t know.
    But I do know they are sold at a mainstream store.
    Maybe someone is more knowledgeable about the Taiwan radio allocations.

Do you think this beautiful and very fragile infrastructure will work even with very minor hostiles with China or a really major natural disaster?
I was here during the big earthquake. ICRT was knocked out down south.
We’re just a slaves to the utility infrastructure. If that goes down, your phone is a paper weight. Not even a walkie-talkie.

Back in the day, we used to form traffic radio nets passing messages for miles, even halfway around the word.
Think of this. All the interested foreigners in Kaohsiung listening to channel 14. There will be conversations, exchanging information and making friends. Maybe face to face get togethers and drinking beer.
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