Climbing Communications for Japan and Korea: Radio Law, Rental Shops, Local Models, and Satellite SOS

🌏 中文版

The pair of radios that works fine at Long Dong cannot be keyed up in Japan or South Korea. Taiwan's license-free FRS uses 467 MHz. Japan's license-free radios must carry the giteki mark, and Korea's are KC-certified personal radios on 424/448 MHz. A Taiwanese radio meets neither. The Hokkaido Bureau of Telecommunications even names "Taiwan-standard FRS" in its Taiwanese-language notice as prohibited.

This article answers four questions: whether to bring your Taiwanese radios, what to rent or buy in Japan and in Korea, which models local climbers actually carry, and whether satellite SOS devices work in each country. For choosing radios in general and how to call commands over a radio, see Climbing Radios. For a general comparison of satellite messengers and PLBs, see Satellite Messengers and PLBs. This article covers only what is different in Japan and Korea. By the end you should be able to book a rental before you leave, or have a list of models to buy when you land.

Why your Taiwanese radio cannot be used

Japan: no giteki, no transmitting, and carrying it with batteries in can count

Article 4, item 3 of Japan's Radio Act says a station needs no license only if its power is 1 W or less and it "uses only conformity-marked radio equipment," meaning equipment with giteki certification. Answer 22 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications giteki mark Q&A says using a radio without the giteki mark may violate the Radio Act.

Taiwanese radios have been named. The Hokkaido Bureau's Taiwanese-language page says that US and Taiwan-standard FRS, among others, are prohibited in Japan because they may interfere with disaster-prevention radio and other important communications.

The part people miss is simply carrying one. The same bureau's Japanese page says: "本人の認識に関わらず、日本国内で電波が発射可能な状態で所持していた場合、不法無線局を開設したものとして処罰の対象となります。" In other words, whether or not you know it, carrying a radio in Japan in a state where it can transmit may be treated as opening an illegal radio station.

The penalties are in the Radio Act:

• Article 110: opening a radio station without a license or registration, up to 1 year of imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥1 million.
• Article 108-2: damaging radio equipment used for public safety, weather services, or the protection of life and property, or impairing its function so as to obstruct communications, up to 5 years of imprisonment or a fine of up to ¥2.5 million; attempts are also punishable.

Visitors to Japan get a 90-day exception, but radios are not in it. Article 4-2 of the Radio Act lets certain equipment brought in by an entrant be "deemed" giteki-certified for a period after entry.

Which equipment qualifies is limited by Article 6-2-3 of the Radio Act Enforcement Regulations: data communications such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, ultra-wideband, and one kind of millimeter-wave motion sensor. Handheld radios fall under a different item, radiotelephones, and are not on the list. The Ministry's page for visitors also talks only about Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

EU PMR446 and US FRS radios are in the same position. The Ministry names US and Taiwanese FRS, GMRS, UHF CB, PRS, and Chinese and Hong Kong public-channel radios. PMR446 is not named, but it has no giteki and does not meet the Article 4 condition. Amateur radio is not a way around it either: Taiwan is not on the Ministry's list of countries whose amateur licenses are recognized, and an unlicensed partner could not use it anyway.

This article recommends leaving your Taiwanese radios at home for Japan. If you must bring them (for example, you need them on the way back), take the batteries out, pack them separately in checked luggage, and do not put them back in while in Japan.

Something you can do tonight: open the packing list for your Japan trip, change the "radios" line to "rent or buy locally," and write down which class you want (dejikan or tokusho).

Korea: KC certification, and the right frequencies

Article 19 of Korea's Radio Waves Act (전파법) requires a permit from the Minister of Science and ICT to open a radio station. The no-filing exception, in Article 25 of the Enforcement Decree, covers personal radio station equipment that has passed conformity assessment (KC) and uses frequencies designated by the Minister.

There is an easy misunderstanding here. Annex 6-2 of the Enforcement Decree exempts equipment brought in for personal use from conformity assessment, one unit per person. But exempt from assessment does not mean allowed to use. The Central Radio Management Service leaflet 올바른 무선국 이용 안내 is explicit:

개인이 사용할 목적으로 해외에서 직접 반입한 기자재는 1인당 1대에 한하여 적합성평가가 면제됩니다. 다만, 국내 기술기준(주파수, 출력 등)에 적합해야 사용할 수 있습니다.

That is: equipment brought in from abroad for personal use is exempt from conformity assessment, limited to one unit per person, but it can be used only if it meets Korean technical standards for frequency, power and so on. The same leaflet says that using a foreign personal radio that does not meet Korean frequency and power standards, including ones bought directly from overseas, is subject to a fine or an administrative penalty.

Korean personal radios use only two narrow slices near 424 MHz and 448 MHz. Taiwanese FRS sits at 467 MHz, US FRS at 462/467 MHz, and PMR446 at 446 MHz, none of them inside. So however many you bring, you cannot transmit with them in Korea.

Penalties:

• Article 84, item 1: opening or operating a radio station without a permit, up to 3 years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won.
• Article 91, item 4: operating radio equipment that does not meet technical standards, an administrative fine of up to 2 million won.

The leaflet says "a fine or an administrative penalty," and there are no published cases showing which article would be applied to a foreign visitor. The Central Radio Management Service has also not said publicly whether bringing in a pair (two units) exceeds the "one unit" limit. Since a Taiwanese radio cannot transmit in Korea anyway, this article recommends not bringing one.

Something you can do tonight: if you have a Korean climbing friend, message them to ask whether they have a "디지털 생활무전기" (digital personal radio) you could borrow, and ask them to check for a KC mark on the body.

What foreigners actually do

Japan: monitoring, warnings, outreach, and a rental market

Foreigners bringing their own radios to Japanese ski areas is a familiar problem for the Ministry. In January 2024 the Hokkaido Bureau ran a two-day survey in Kutchan and Niseko, and most of the communications that may have violated the Radio Act were in foreign languages: 114 out of 121 (hamlife, 2024-01-26). The response was to warn users over the radio, locate the transmitter and instruct the user to stop when interference was serious, and run English announcements on buses and at ski areas. The Asahi Shimbun also noted that besides foreign skiers in the backcountry, some Japanese users were doing the same.

There was an earlier survey too. Over two days one winter before the pandemic, Niseko logged 167 illegal English-language transmissions, ten times as many as Furano and other ski areas.

The two sources disagree on the year of that survey. The Sankei Shimbun (2023-12-02) says "the winter five years ago," which is about 2018; HokkaidoWilds' English translation says 2006. Sankei also reported that Australian radios use frequencies close to Niseko's TV broadcast frequencies and could affect up to about 20,000 households, so the Bureau decided to install new monitoring equipment in Niseko. The Hokkaido Shimbun report that HokkaidoWilds translated adds that the antenna sits in Kutchan and is monitored remotely 24 hours a day.

Officials also tell foreigners directly what to do. At a briefing for Niseko tourism businesses on 2025-01-30, someone asked which radios foreign tourists should use. The Hokkaido Bureau answered: "デジタル簡易無線（登録局）のレンタルがおすすめである。レンタルを受ける方は手続不要で使用できる。" That is, renting a digital simple radio is recommended, and the renter can use it without any paperwork (briefing record). The Niseko Promotion Board and Niseko Town reposted the notice in January 2025, and around Hakuba the Shinetsu Bureau had already put up English, Chinese and Korean posters at 53 locations in 2019 (hamlife reporting the Shinetsu Bureau release, 2019-12-27; Shinetsu Bureau page). Chase for Snow, a Chinese-language ski school in Niseko, also warned on Instagram that Taiwanese and US FRS, GMRS, Chinese and Hong Kong public radios, and Australian UHF are all prohibited.

For what foreigners do themselves, the comments on HokkaidoWilds' radio guide have concrete examples:

• A Canadian backcountry-skiing couple use BCA radios at home and wrote that friends had used their BCA radios on the last trip, "but I realize this is illegal." The site owner called a Yamada Denki store in Chitose, which had the Kenwood Demitoss UBX-LS20 specified low-power radio at ¥8,800 each.
• A group of foreign skiers rented three Icom IC-DPR6 units (dejikan) from Hokkaido Shinwa: two weeks with insurance, delivered to the hotel, ¥14,850 in total. The shop preset the channel and told them not to change it.
• Another visitor wrote that they nearly bought a batch of radios on Amazon and switched to a rental shop after checking.

Enforcement: warnings first, but the penalties still stand

In the published enforcement cases, everyone referred or cited lived in Japan. In 2015, a 27-year-old foreign resident in Minato, Tokyo, used foreign-standard radios to coordinate between the street and a shop and interfered with a TV station's relay link (Kanto Bureau). In January 2026, a 65-year-old Otaru resident used a foreign-standard radio bought online in a snowplow and was referred to the Otaru police (Hokkaido Bureau). For tourists, the public record shows warnings, instructions and outreach.

That does not mean bringing one is fine. The penalty articles do not distinguish tourists from residents, and the Bureau decided on 24-hour monitoring from Kutchan. In a 2026-03-01 video, the Japanese backcountry channel Backcountry Ski Leaks Japan says from 6:43 that monitoring cars look ordinary from outside, so when you come back from the backcountry to the car park or hotel, put radios deep in your pack. From 7:26 he says that possessing a foreign radio is not itself a violation, but transmitting, or being almost ready to transmit, is, so he recommends removing the batteries. He also says he never recommends bringing foreign radios to Japan to use. His wording on possession is looser than the Hokkaido Bureau's, but the practical advice is the same: do not keep the radio in a state where it can transmit.

Korea: no examples from foreign visitors

For Korea, there are no public trip reports from foreign tourists, hikers or climbers about which radios to bring, and no news of a foreigner being penalized by the radio authority for transmitting. The one case involving a foreigner is different in kind: in August 2026 a Chinese teenager on the observation deck at Jeju airport used a radio bought in China to listen in on tower communications. After a member of the public reported him, police arrested him under the Protection of Communications Secrets Act (eavesdropping), not the Radio Waves Act (Headline Jeju, 2026-09-15).

Korean rental shops have Korean-only pages and nothing aimed at foreigners. For Korea, all you can go on is the law; there is no visitor experience to follow.

Something you can do tonight: read the comments on the HokkaidoWilds page, note the rental shops near your itinerary, and check whether they ship to a hotel address.

What local climbers use

Japan: guides use dejikan, independent climbers use tokusho

Plenty of Japanese climbers write that they "brought radios," but few name a model. First-hand records with a model fall into two groups:

There is no consensus "climbing radio": each model shows up once or twice, and there is no public example of an alpine club naming a required model on its gear list. Multipitch logs on YAMAP mostly name only the class. One on the North Ridge of Somadake in Myogi says "デジ簡（１Ｗ）持参しました。（包括登録済）" (brought a 1 W dejikan, blanket-registered) (YAMAP, 2023-10-21).

Shouting is still the norm in Japan. A Japanese climber living in Squamish writes that in Japan people mostly shout "ビレイ解除〜" (off belay), while in Squamish radios are the norm (PUMP ONLINE STORE, 2025-10-15).

Korea: common on ridge routes, but few identifiable models, mostly analog

On Korean multipitch and 릿지 (ridge climbing) trip reports, radios are more common than in Japan. At least 15 reports from 2024–2026 mention bringing one, or regretting not bringing one. A climber from Daegu writes "어딜 가나 릿지에선 무전기가 필수": wherever you go, a radio is essential on a ridge route (Cheondeungsan, Wanju, 2024-06).

But almost nobody names a model. The few that can be identified come mostly from photos, and each appears only once:

Every identifiable unit is a "생활무선국" (no-filing personal radio), and half are analog. Korea banned production, import and sale of analog personal radios from 2024, and units already in use are allowed only until 2026-12-31. If you borrow from a Korean friend, check that it is digital.

Field notes from Korean trip reports:

• On the Gyeongwondae ridge at Seoraksan, two parties each had radios but had not agreed on a channel and could not reach each other; another unit's antenna got bent and broke off while dragging (2024-10).
• A Korea University alpine club team at Seoraksan had a radio die at the end of pitch 5, and shouting was drowned out by wind (2025-10).
• On Towangpok ice, the radios would not connect in the cold (2025-06).
• On the DC Inside amateur radio board, one poster says a personal radio is enough for rock climbing because you are usually in line of sight, but not across a valley (2023-08).

Something you can do tonight: open the topo for your route and count how many pitches involve a corner, a traverse, or losing sight of the belayer. That number decides whether you need tokusho or dejikan.

What tokusho is, and whether it is enough on multipitch

Japan's license-free, registration-free radios are called specified low-power (tokusho), at only 10 mW. Icom says that because the output is weak, talk range is about 300 m (Icom); that is a manufacturer's figure. On the Yamareco Q&A board, one hiker answers about 200 to 300 m with a clear line of sight; another says the reliable range is "肉眼で見える範囲" (what you can see with your own eyes), and across a ridge into the next valley it barely works (Yamareco Q&A, 2022-12-30).

Japan has two related classes:

• Digital simple radio (dejikan), registered station: 351 MHz, up to 5 W, registration with the Ministry required. The guide's blog mentioned above compares the two and says dejikan is "はるかに聞こえ良くて使いやすい" (far clearer and easier to use) than tokusho.
• Digital low-power community radio: 500 mW, no registration, for example the Icom IC-DRC1MKII (Yamareco, "Communication in the mountains").

Whether tokusho drops out around a corner on a multipitch route or across a rock rib has not been tested publicly. The range figures above describe two extremes, line of sight and across a ridge, and nobody knows which side a corner on a wall falls on. This article recommends renting dejikan if several pitches lose sight of the belayer or you need to talk to another party; for single pitch or short multipitch, tokusho is enough.

Something you can do tonight: decide from the count in the previous section. Zero or one pitch, write "tokusho"; two or more, or multiple parties, write "dejikan."

Japan: rent or buy

Rent (first choice for short trips)

A few things to know:

• Renting dejikan means you do not register. Article 70-9 of the Radio Act lets a registrant have others operate their registered station. The rental company is the registrant, and the renter files nothing. That is why the Bureau recommends rental for foreigners.
• No radio rental offers same-day pickup at an airport counter. Wi-Fi routers do; radios have to be shipped to your first night's lodging.
• RadiGo's page header says service is "scheduled to begin on December 10th" with no year. Before ordering, confirm it accepts your dates.
• Nagano (Hakuba): HokkaidoWilds knows of no English-language rental shop there and suggests having a Hokkaido shop ship to you.

Buy locally (worth it if you visit Japan often)

For tokusho, just check for the giteki mark on the body. Buying dejikan is harder: the owner must register with the regional telecommunications bureau. The grounds for refusing registration in the Radio Act (Article 27-24) do not include nationality, but the Ministry has not said publicly whether a tourist without a Japanese address can register, or what to put in the address field. RadiGo says it usually takes foreign visitors about a month. According to Icom's summary, the registration fee is ¥1,500 per individual registration online, or ¥2,730 on paper (Icom).

Do not buy: foreign radios without giteki (US or Taiwanese FRS, PMR446), or amateur radios such as Baofeng (a Taiwanese amateur license is not recognized in Japan).

Something you can do tonight: enter your dates and lodging address on RadiGo and check the quote and whether it can deliver. If it cannot take your order, look at Transceiver Rental Center or a Hokkaido shop.

Korea: rent or buy

Rent

Whether Korean shops accept foreign tourists is not clear from their public pages. Ask a Korean friend or your lodging to call for you, and say explicitly that you want a "디지털 생활무전기" (digital personal radio).

Buy locally

Prices are store listings checked on 2026-11-02 and will change; search the model name again on a Korean online store such as Coupang before you go.

Whether you rent or buy, confirm three things:

1. KC certification, with "생활무선국" marked on the body.
2. It is digital ("디지털" on the body or datasheet). Analog units cannot be used after 2026-12-31, and plenty are still on the used market and in friends' hands.
3. 424/448 MHz, 0.5 W or less. Korea's current personal radio channels are 424.1375–424.2625 MHz and 448.7375–448.925 MHz, 27 digital narrowband channels in total. Units that meet these need no filing, and the proviso to Article 20 of the Radio Waves Act lets foreigners use them too.

The current technical standard is the Ministry notice 신고하지 아니하고 개설할 수 있는 무선국용 무선설비의 기술기준 (No. 2026-10); the 2026-12-31 end date for analog units is in its supplementary provisions.

Something you can do tonight: save the three checks in Korean in your phone's notes (KC, 생활무선국, 디지털) so you can show them at a shop or read them out on the phone.

Satellite SOS in Japan and Korea

A radio only reaches your partner. For calling outside help, the two countries differ:

(PLB rules: COSPAS-SARSAT; iPhone: Apple 101573.)

Details Taiwanese readers will run into:

• inReach messages in Chinese are short. The same Yamareco video says a message on non-Plus models is 160 bytes: 160 characters in English, but Chinese and Japanese characters take 3 bytes each, leaving about 53 characters. Write short preset messages for a Japan trip, or switch them to English.
• Apple's relay center supports Japanese but not Chinese. Apple's guidance is to try calling the local emergency number first and use satellite only if that fails.
• Leave the PLB at home. A PLB registered in Taiwan cannot be activated on land in either Japan or Korea.

For the general comparison of inReach, PLBs and phone satellite SOS, plus how to activate them in Taiwan, see Satellite Messengers and PLBs.

Something you can do tonight: open your inReach preset messages and write one Chinese SOS message of 50 characters or fewer (who, which route, which pitch, what injury), or write it in English.

Pre-departure checklist

• Leave your Taiwanese radios at home; if you must bring them, take the batteries out, pack them separately in checked luggage, and do not reinstall them while there.
• Japan: order from RadiGo or another shop for delivery to your first night's lodging, or buy two giteki tokusho radios at an electronics store on arrival.
• Korea: have someone call a shop to rent two digital personal radios, or buy digital units on arrival. If borrowing from a friend, check it is digital.
• Test on the ground first: same channel and privacy code on both, keypad lock on, and one check at the base of the wall to see whether you can still hear each other around a corner.
• Keep the antenna from sticking out of your pack where the rock can bend it; wear the radio on your chest with a short leash; in winter keep batteries in an inner layer and carry spares.
• Agree in advance what you do when a radio dies or you cannot hear: go back to shouting and your agreed sequence.
• Leave the PLB at home. For inReach, confirm the subscription is active, emergency contacts are registered, and firmware is updated.
• Write down the emergency numbers: Japan 110/119, Korea 112/119.

Practice: three scenarios

Answers are under each question. Think first, then check.

1. You are climbing at Ogawayama for a week, and your partner says: "I'll just bring my pair of Taiwanese FRS radios. We're only using them on the wall, nobody will care."

2. You are going to climb Insubong in Korea, and a Korean friend offers to lend you a pair of Motorola T82s.

3. Next month you are climbing a week each in Japan and Korea, and you have an inReach Mini 3 and a PLB registered in Taiwan.

Next steps

This is the last article in the Climbing Travel Gear series. To see how the whole series fits together, go back to the Climbing Travel Gear overview. For the crags themselves, see the Japan crags overview and the Korea crags overview.

References

Japanese law and official guidance:

• Radio Act (e-Gov)
• Radio Act Enforcement Regulations (e-Gov)
• Giteki mark Q&A (MIC Radio Use Portal)
• Taiwanese-language notice on foreign-standard radios (MIC Hokkaido Bureau of Telecommunications)
• Use of foreign-standard radios (MIC Hokkaido Bureau of Telecommunications)
• Using phones, Wi-Fi and other devices brought from abroad (MIC Radio Use Portal)
• Guest operator system (MIC Radio Use Portal)
• Niseko radio environment briefing (Hokkaido Bureau, 2025-02-12)
• Foreign-standard radios cannot be used (Niseko Promotion Board, 2025-01)
• Use of foreign-standard radios (Niseko Town, 2025-01)
• Foreign-standard radios (Shinetsu Bureau of Telecommunications)
• Shinetsu Bureau warns about foreign-standard radios near ski resorts (hamlife, 2019-12-27)
• Enforcement against an illegal radio station (Kanto Bureau press release, 2015-07-03)
• Enforcement against an illegal radio station (Hokkaido Bureau press release, 2026-02-02)

Japanese news and rental companies:

• Illegal-signal radios: warnings on taking them in and out of Japan (Sankei Shimbun, 2023-12-02)
• Illegal radio survey in Niseko (hamlife, 2024-01-26)
• Illegal radio use by foreign skiers (Asahi Shimbun, 2024-02-02)
• Hokkaido Telecomm Bureau to track illegal radio use (HokkaidoWilds)
• Two-way radios in the Hokkaido backcountry (HokkaidoWilds, updated 2025-12-11)
• Chase for Snow: radio rules in Japan (Instagram)
• Japanese radio law and foreign walkie-talkies (Backcountry Ski Leaks Japan, 2026-03-01)
• RadiGo Japan
• Transceiver Rental Center
• Japan ENIX Two-way Radio
• Radio licenses and qualifications (Icom)
• Registering digital simple radios (Icom)
• Range of specified low-power radios (Yamareco Q&A, 2022-12-30)
• Communication in the mountains (Yamareco, updated 2025-09-08)

Japanese climbers' records:

• About radios in the mountains (Kaoru (宮崎薫), 2024-05-14)
• New expanded-channel radio and registration change (Kaoru (宮崎薫), 2026-10-24)
• Question on multipitch radios (Yahoo! Chiebukuro, 2023-05-13)
• Yatsugatake Jogosawa and Shodoshin Crack (MuRa's mountain blog, 2024-02-13)
• TRH8A specified low-power radio bought for multipitch (超デスクワーカーの山行冒険記, 2024-06-24)
• Buying a digital simple radio (Kuri Adventures, 2016-04-02)
• Myogi Somadake North Ridge (YAMAP, 2023-10-21)
• Life in Squamish #17 (PUMP ONLINE STORE, 2025-10-15)

Korean law, rental shops and climbers' records:

• Radio Waves Act (Korea Law Information Center)
• Radio Waves Act Enforcement Decree, Annex 6-2: conformity assessment exemptions (Korea Law Information Center)
• Guide to proper radio station use (Central Radio Management Service, 2024-06)
• Motorola Talkabout T39D Korean datasheet
• Hana Tongsin radio rental
• Radio eavesdropping case at Jeju airport (Headline Jeju, 2026-09-15)
• Seoraksan Ulsanbawi Venus route (Naver blog, 2026-10)
• Towangseong Falls ice climb (Naver blog, 2023-02-11)
• Joryeongsan Saeteo crag radio review (Naver blog, 2023-06-20)
• MYT-0033 radio for climbing (Naver blog, 2019-09)
• Wanju Cheondeungsan Mindeulle ridge (Naver blog, 2024-06-03)
• Seoraksan Gyeongwondae ridge (Naver blog, 2024-10-09)
• Korea University KUAC Seorak summer training (Naver blog, 2025-10)
• Towangpok (Naver blog, 2025-06)
• Personal radios for rock climbing (DC Inside amateur radio board, 2023-08-09)

Satellite SOS:

• National Beacon Regulations for PLBs (COSPAS-SARSAT)
• Use Emergency SOS via satellite on your iPhone (Apple 101573, 2026-10-05)
• A full explanation of Garmin inReach (ヤマレコ社長の絶対遭難させないチャンネル, 2024-11-19)