The IARU Region 3 Newsletter Issue 1, November 1998 A new Information Bulletin for you! A motion passed at the 10th IARU Region 3 Conference in Beijing in September 1997 requested a regional amateur radio information bulletin for member societies. More frequent distribution than the present "Region 3 News" was suggested. At their annual meeting, in Tokyo in August 1998, your Region 3 Directors instructed your Secretary to publish an occasional circular. I am very happy to present this first issue of the "IARU Region 3 Newsletter" to the member Societies of IARU Region 3 and to other readers. --- Keigo Komuro JA1KAB, Secretary --- >>> Your Directors meet in Tokyo <<< The venue for the annual IARU Region 3 Directors' Meeting was finally selected after the estimated travel and other costs of holding the meeting at the home city of each Director were compared. The place incurring the minimum travel and other expenses was Tokyo. So your Directors met from 19 to 21 August 1998 in a meeting room at JARL Headquarters in Tokyo. All Directors are connected by e-mail and selecting this meeting venue is a good example of e-mail being used in the business of the Region. The meeting was opened by the Chairman ZL2AMJ who thanked all Directors, HL1IFM, JJ1OEY, 9M2SS, VK3ADW and the Secretary, for attending. He then welcomed the IARU Vice President VK3KI and the Chairman of IARU Region 1 PA0LOU. Later the Secretary of IARU Region 2 YV5BPG, joined the meeting. The meeting received a welcoming address from the JARL President JA1AN. During the meeting all participants were invited to attend the opening ceremony and the eyeball QSO party of the JARL Ham Fair which ran in Tokyo from 21 to 23 August, 1998. After the Secretary's report the Directors and the guests reported their recent activities. Reports from the IARU Region 3 Monitoring System coordinator ZL1CVK, the IARU Region 3 Beacon Project coordinator ZL2NN, and the IARU Region 3 ARDF committee Chairman JA1HQG were received with thanks. JA1HQG was appointed unanimously by the Directors as ARDF Chairman. The STARS*** Task Force report from JARL and a progress report on the Harmonization of License Qualifications from VK3KT were also received with thanks. Copies of all these reports were recently sent to you. Amateur radio activities and problems in many Region 3 countries and territories were discussed. The Directors reviewed Vietnam, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Myanmar, Nepal, Cambodia, French Polynesia, Brunei, People's Republic China, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, New Caledonia, Iran, Maldives and Macau. All the many motions adopted by the 10th IARU Region 3 Conference held in Beijing in 1997 were reviewed one-by-one. Instructions to the Secretary and matters for study by the Directors were confirmed. One motion requests Directors to investigate "incorporation" of IARU Region 3. Your Secretary reported on the circumstances for Japan and the VK3KI, a lawyer, provided a very useful study paper. The Chairman concluded by asking each Director to investigate further, especially the case of possible incorporation in the country of each Director. The Directors agreed that a post of IARU Region 3 EMC coordinator should be established at the next Region 3 Conference in the year 2000. A draft paper from NZART on Internet and Amateur Radio Guidelines was unanimously adopted by the meeting and will soon be distributed to the member societies. There was considerable discussion with exchange of ideas on plans and reports about the Region and the Chairman concluded that all these matters should be more thoroughly reviewed at the next Directors' meeting. The financial condition of Region 3 is still healthy. The membership fee remittance from member Societies is being received at the same pace as in previous years including from those societies affected by Asian economic crises, i.e. RAST, MARTS and KARL but excepting ORARI. The position of ORARI was discussed at length and the Directors decided to accept a membership fee reduction as proposed by ORARI as a special Indonesian case and for the fiscal year 1998/99 only. Taking the financial position of IARU Region 3 into account, the Directors agreed that the number of representatives to the 1999 IARU AC meeting in Region 1 should be two only with no third person. The Secretary reported that the budget for 1999/2000 is still operational but some shifting of the figures will be necessary due to the effect of the income-decrease. The meeting endorsed this explanation. It was considered to be unnecessary to inspect in 1999 the venue for the year 2000 Region 3 Conference. So, again considering the most economical venue and way to hold the 1999 Directors' meeting, the next Directors' meeting was agreed to be held in Tokyo from 18 to 21 August, 1999. >>> Your Secretary visits Fiji and FARA <<< In connection with his employment, the IARU Region 3 Secretary Keigo Komuro JA1KAB visited Fiji. There he had meetings in the capital, Suva, with officials of our Fiji member society, FARA. On 22 October, the President of FARA Dick Northcott 3D2CM and the FARA Secretary Raj Singh 3D2ER met for several hours of talks with Keigo. The on-air activities in Fiji include trans-equatorial propagation studies with Hawaii, satellite communication, meteor scatter, 10 GHz transmissions over a 7 km path and some 24 GHz transmission experiments. Dick spoke of the usefulness of materials published by NZART and other Region 3 societies and of the cost of imported equipment. Later discussions were held with other FARA members, Lee 3D2VA and Aisea 3D2AA on the next day. >>> Amateur Radio Administration Course - Vietnam <<< A course in Amateur Radio Administration was held in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), from 10 to 14 September 1998. The focus of the course was for the administration of Vietnam, the Department General of Posts & Telecommunications, which does not yet have extensive experience with amateur radio but seeks to encourage it to provide the self-training, technical investigation and emergency communications support that are the hallmarks of amateur radio. The instructors were Dick Baldwin W1RU, President of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) from the United States, and Fred Johnson ZL2AMJ, Director / Chairman of the IARU Region 3, from New Zealand. The Vietnam Amateur Radio Administration Course was an enthusiastic group of 18 people. The objective of the course is to carefully review the International Radio Regulations and to show how they can be converted into domestic radio regulations to encourage the growth of amateur radio and to protect the interests of the administration. The course was promoted by Nguyen Bac Ai 3W6AR President of the Vietnam Amateur Radio Club. He provided most of the arranging and the preparing of the facilities for the course which was held at the Posts and Telecommunications Training Center 2 in HCM City. The arrangements and the facilities were excellent. A visit to Hanoi was made for a productive meeting with Mr. Nguyen Huy Luan, the Deputy General Secretary of the DGPT. He was presented with an IARU plaque thanking Vietnam for their support to the Amateur Service. >>> The IARU Administrative Council meets <<< The Administrative Council of the IARU met in Porlamar, Venezuela, October 3 to 5. The meeting was held immediately after the IARU Region 2 Conference. The members of the Administrative Council are IARU President W1RU, Vice President VK3KI, Secretary W4RA, and regional representatives PA0LOU, SP5FM, VE3CDM, YV5BPG, ZL2AMJ, and JJ1OEY. Additional regional observers were G3GVV, HC2EE, and VK3ADW. The Council received the nominations of Larry E. Price W4RA for IARU President and David A. Wardlaw VK3ADW for Vice-President. (Please refer to Calendar 175) The Council reviewed the implications of the postponement of the next ITU World Radiocommunication Conference until the year 2000 and the deletion of certain agenda items. While this WRC will be held somewhat later than originally expected, preparations for it and the subsequent WRCs are ongoing. IARU participation in the preparatory meetings as well as in the conference itself, remains essential. The status of the action plan developed by the IARU 7 MHz Strategy Committee and previously adopted by the Council was reviewed and updated in light of developments since the previous meeting of the Council. The Council accepted a report of the Future of the Amateur Service Committee (FASC) which was prepared taking into account recommendations of the previous three regional conferences and adopted guiding principles for possible revision of Article S25. The Council recognized the desirability of stating the technical and operational qualifications for an amateur license in a mandatory ITU-R Recommendation rather than in the ITU Radio Regulations themselves, and requested that the FASC continue to develop a draft of such a Recommendation. Recognizing an ongoing need to review the structure of the IARU to ensure its long-term viability, the Council agreed to the appointment of a committee of not more than five persons. The committee was asked to provide their first preliminary report 90 days prior to the 1999 meeting of the Council. Noting that all three regional organizations had responded to the Council's request to consider various possibilities for further development of the IARU Beacon Project, the Council adopted a resolution reflecting those principles on which consensus had been achieved. A new network of intra-regional beacons in the 28 and 50 MHz bands is envisaged. The next regular meeting of the Administrative Council will be held in Lillehammer, Norway, on September 26-28, 1999 *** IARU Coordinators & Advisors *** IARU Monitoring System International Coordinator: Robert E. Knowles, ZL1BAD IARU Satellite Adviser: Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS5AKV IARU EMC Adviser: Christian M. Verholt, OZ8CY IARU Beacon Project International Coordinator: Robert S. Fabry, N6EK >>> QSL cards might be charged "DUTIES" <<< IARU Region 1 recently advised us that anyone sending a package of QSL cards to a QSL bureau should not forget to affix GREEN CUSTOMS declaration sticker and fill out "no commercial value, cards only". The UBA reported a case of charging import duties to QSL package with no sticker An e-mail copy of this Newsletter? It is proposed to send this Newsletter electronically so that societies can make extracts for local publication. Please advise the Region 3 Secretary of the e-mail address for the dispatch of future copies to you! >>> More news? <<< Please send items of amateur radio news that will be of interest to readers in the Region to the Region 3 Secretary. Please use this way to let other member societies in the Region know what you and your society are doing! Thank you! The IARU Region 3 Newsletter is published by the International Amateur Radio Union Region 3, P. O. Box 73, Toshima, Tokyo 170-8691, Japan; Keigo Komuro JA1KAB Secretary. Phone: +81 3 3944-3322 Fax: +81 3 3943-8282 E-mail: iaru-r3@jarl.or.jp The statements or opinions in this Newsletter do not, unless otherwise stated, necessarily reflect the view of IARU Region 3, the Directors or the Secretariat. Items from this Newsletter may be freely copied for publication of member societies of IARU Region 3.