The following news item is courtesy of the International Amateur Radio Union:
The Prime roles of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) are to work in the areas of spectrum privileges (gaining or retaining spectrum for the Amateur Radio Services) and spectrum protection (making sure that our spectrum remains available for use and free from serious man-made interference). To do this we work in the international standards bodies (CISPR, CENELEC and ETSI), the Regional Telecommunications Organizations around the world (eg, CEPT, CITEL, APT, ATU) and of course ITU.
The ITU is the United Nation’s specialized agency for telecommunications. Its website contains a considerable amount of material and documentation of interest to the Amateur service, much of which can be downloaded from https://www.itu.int.
In the last month, IARU representatives have attended the CEPT Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) – the policy-making body of CEPT, one of the many CEPT committees at which the IARU is present. The IARU was also present at ITU Working Parties under Study Group 5, whose remit is to study matters relating to terrestrial radiocommunication services, which includes the Amateur Service. WP5A is working to prepare for the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2019 with a focus which includes the Amateur Radio Services.
At its November meeting it:
- Completed revisions to Recommendation ITU-R M.1732 dealing with parameters to be used in sharing studies regarding the compatibility of Amateur Service operations with other radio services mainly in the 50 – 54 MHz band. It also generated four liaison statements to other groups. “Liaison statements” are the ways in which working parties alert each other to matters of common interest
- Continued work on the sharing and compatibility studies required for WRC-19 agenda item 1.1 which addresses an Amateur allocation in ITU Region 1 in common with those already available in Regions 2 and 3 in the band 50 – 54 MHz. Sharing studies consider the criteria under which spectrum can be shared between differing radio services,Addressed other WRC-19 agenda items which could impact the Amateur service
- Updated the WP5A Webpage information document “Guide to the use of ITU-R texts relating to the Amateur and Amateur-satellite services”
- Reviewed liaison statements from other ITU Working parties on topics of relevance to the Amateur Services and generated some liaison statements itself
The IARU will continue to be active in ITU and Regional Telecommunications Organizations as preparations advance for the next World Radio Conference in 2019. The coming weeks will see the IARU participating in CEPT’s Conference Preparatory Group for WRC-19 and in its Project Team meetings.