This announcement for World Amateur Radio Day was posted on the IARU website along with links for clubs (or individuals) to download flyers and posters to promote the event.
World Amateur Radio Day
Every April 18, radio amateurs worldwide take to the airwaves in celebration of World Amateur Radio Day. It was on that day in 1925 that the International Amateur Radio Union was formed in Paris.
Amateur Radio experimenters were the first to discover that the short wave spectrum — far from being a wasteland — could support worldwide propagation. In the rush to use these shorter wavelengths, Amateur Radio was “in grave danger of being pushed aside,” the IARU’s history has noted. Amateur Radio pioneers met in Paris in 1925 and created the IARU to support Amateur Radio worldwide.
Just two years later, at the International Radiotelegraph Conference, Amateur Radio gained the allocations still recognized today — 160, 80, 40, 20, and 10 meters. Since its founding, the IARU has worked tirelessly to defend and expand the frequency allocations for Amateur Radio. Thanks to the support of enlightened administrations in every part of the globe, radio amateurs are now able to experiment and communicate in frequency bands strategically located throughout the radio spectrum. From the 25 countries that formed the IARU in 1925, the IARU has grown to include 160 member-societies in three regions. IARU Region 1 includes Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Northern Asia. Region 2 covers the Americas, and Region 3 is comprised of Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific island nations, and most of Asia. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has recognized the IARU as representing the interests of Amateur Radio.
Today, Amateur Radio is more popular than ever, with over 3,000,000 licensed operators!
The full article and a list of several amateur-radio related activities may be found here.
Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.
Robert, if I read between the lines here, you’re encouraging me to buy that TYT MD-380 DMR HT I’ve been eyeing lately.
Am I correct?
Actually, no need to answer as I’m pretty sure I am. 🙂 I mean, one should give oneself the gift of amateur radio on Amateur Radio Day!
-Thomas
Ha! You saw right through me! Of course, another option would be the BTECH MINI UV-2501+220 25 Watt Tri Band Base, Mobile Radio for about the same price – I like mine ; )
Maybe the shortwave wastelands of broadcasting being vacated by Belarus, KBC, and others be reassigned to amateurs
ah, now there’s a good thought!!
How about pirate stations squatting on those frequencies until it happens?
Yes – what’s that old saying? Possession is 9/10’s of the law?!
Since these are “broadcasting” frequencies, Maybe we need a new class of usage called amateur radio broadcasters. You can’t call CQ or communicate to someone in particular but be able to broadcast ad-lib and be able to transmit music, but not profane language
But that’s been the trend, new bands in the HF spectrum.
There were the WARC bands in 1979, I thought something else later. Then the small number of channels in the 60M band, is that now getting to be a decade ago? And most recently, some LF allocations.
All a result of other services moving elsewhere or changing something, so the frequencies were freed up.
Of course, there has been encroachment on the VHF and higher bands, because those frequencies have become increasingly important in recent times. Though those changes come in part because we got have allocations the further up in frequency, at a time when use was limited.
And, not only did we lose “200 metres and down” when hams proved that shortwave was useful for long distant communication, but the HF bands gradually got smaller, though long enough ago that it’s forgotten.
Michael