International Amateur Radio Union Region 3
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Last Updated: September 25, 2008

ITU Telecom Asia 2008   September 2nd - 5th 2008, Bangkok, Thailand - A Report by Gopal Madhavan, VU2GMN

Most of the display material was printed at Chennai and handed over to Radio Amateur Society of Thailand (RAST) officials at a meeting at the Forum Park Hotel, Bangkok, on Monday the 18th August, after which we had lunch.

Present: Chaiyong Wongwuticomjon, HS1QVD, President RAST Phatanadid Kulapaijit, HS1WFK Ms Worawee Angsutornjarupatt (Joy), secretary to HS1WFK Tony Waltham, HS0ZDX David Furman, HS0ZDP Narissara Shaowanasai, N9WMS Champ C MuangAmphun, E21EIC Gopal Madhavan, VU2GMN

Discussions took place on what else needs to be done, how many volunteers were needed etc and RAST kindly agreed to get things organised. All material for the booth which was prepared in Chennai was also handed over. Other material was expected from WIA and ARRL.

I returned to Bangkok in the late evening of the 25th August and stayed at the Park Hotel. Chaiyong and John from RAST met with me in the afternoon of the 26th when we went through the check list and decided on the design of the T-shirt so the print order could be given. The Thai version of the NZART leaflet was also being done.

	I met with RAST volunteers and Jay Oka, JA1TRC from JARL on the 31st at the exhibition site and the booth looked like this.

About two hours later the booth had been transformed into this.

Hans Ehlers, DF5UG from Germany also joined us and assisted throughout the event.

Telecom Asia was formally opened by the Thai Princess on Monday the 1st September 2008. Very few were invited and none of us went there. The exhibition opened for visitors on the 2nd September and closed on the 5th September. A couple of views of our booth during the exhibition are shown below.


Apart from IARU material we also displayed material from Open CARE, an Emergency Communications NGO run mostly by radio amateurs, and also material from the Asian Institute of Technology which actively promotes amateur radio and in whose premises RAST have a very fine club station which is open to all amateurs with an appropriate license. The satellite model from JARL was the centrepiece and evoked a lot of interest.

The young volunteers from RAST were very enthusiastic and efficient, pulling in visitors and handing out leaflets in English and Thai. Almost a 1000 leaflets were handed out and hopefully some of them will result in interest in amateur radio as many were given to young visitors. Many Thai amateurs visited the booth and signed the visitor's book.


The highlight of the event was the visit to our booth by the Secretary General of ITU, Dr Hamadoun I Toure, HB9EHT,
and Dr Eun-Ju Kim, Head ITU Regional office for Asia and the Pacific.


I feel that the effort in setting up this project was well worthwhile and we should do this regularly.

The IMPACT Exhibition and Convention Center is a magnificent facility - a huge area, completely void of pillars on the upper level. The lower level houses several meeting rooms, a ball room and a food court. The location is rather far from the centre of the city, but the organisers ran shuttle buses from selected hotels and so it was fairly easy to get there during the event, otherwise a taxi was the only option.