ARLA/CLUSTER: Episódio n.º 147 da série "Foundations of Amateur Radio" - Voce e a IARU

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Foundations of Amateur Radio #147

*You and the IARU*

Have you ever considered the infrastructure that exists to make it possible
to tune to 7.090 MHz, call CQ and make contact with anyone on the planet?

In a world where we as radio amateurs share spectrum with radio and
television broadcasters, mobile phones, wireless networks, satellites, GPS,
drones, wireless headphones, radar, boating, aviation, citizen band, garage
door openers, fitness trackers and any other wireless gadget imaginable,
not to mention radio astronomy, microwave ovens, meteorological aids, inter
and intra car communication, autonomous cars, trains and more.

The world clamours for spectrum and in among those allocations we find the
amateur bands.

There are 24 million odd people in Australia, a few normal people, but
mostly odd and about 14000 radio amateur license holders, that's about
0.06% of the population.

It's extraordinary that in the last 100 years of radio spectrum allocation
we have access to the bands we have. It's easy to forget that in the
rarefied air of amateur radio where we have access to an astonishing amount
of spectrum how unique we really are.

Not only do we have a situation where we have access to bands, this is
mostly global access. There are exceptions and while bands don't exactly
line up, for example 7.090 MHz in Australia and the UK is an SSB calling
frequency, but in the United States this is a CW, RTTY and data frequency,
still amateur radio, but not the same mode.

How this allocation exists is a combination of being the first mover, that
is, radio amateurs came along and used it before anyone else had any use
for the spectrum and the existence of the *International Amateur Radio
Union*, the IARU.

The IARU is a topic in and of itself, but in essence it's an organisation
that exists and has done since 1925 due to radio amateurs combining their
efforts. The IARU consists of over 160 member countries which are
represented by their peak body, in Australia the WIA, the UK has the RSGB
and the US has the ARRL. So, if you're a member of one of those
organisations, you in turn are represented at the IARU where volunteers
represent you and me on the world stage.

The IARU has organised the world into three regions that correspond with
the International Telecommunications Union, Region 1 is Europe, Africa, the
Middle East and Russia, Region 2 is the Americas, Region 3 is the rest,
Asia and the Pacific, that includes India and China.

At some level discussion about the IARU, the role it plays and the
processes it has and services it offers is a dry and boring administrative
slog. It's not sexy, it's not thrilling, but every once in a while I think
it would be a great idea to consider what the world might look like without
the IARU and what our hobby might look like had this organisation not
existed.

There are some public activities that the IARU engages in, the Beacon
Project, the HF World Championships and the Worked All Continents award.
There's the Monitoring System and other activities such as the Amateur
Radio Direction Finding or ARDF championships.

The public relations face aside, much of the activity of the IARU is
invisible, going to meetings, making proposals, keeping abreast of new
technology and threats to radio spectrum, participating in working and
study groups and the administration of all this volunteer effort.

Next time you call CQ and a station on the other side of the planet
answers, consider some of the invisible forces at work that make it
possible.

I'm *Onno VK6FLAB*

To listen to the podcast, visit the website:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/foundations/ and scroll to the bottom for the
latest episode. You can also use your podcast tool of choice and search for
my callsign, VK6FLAB, or you can read the book, look for my callsign on
your local Amazon store, or visit my author page:
http://amazon.com/author/owh

If you'd like to participate in discussion about the podcast or about
amateur radio, you can visit the Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/foundations.itmaze

Feel free to get in touch directly via email: onno  itmaze.com.au, or follow
on twitter: @vk6flab (http://twitter.com/vk6flab/)

If you'd like to join the weekly net for new and returning amateurs, check
out the details at http://ftroop.vk6.net.
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