Greetings from Brazil,
Today the XVI Session of the General Assembly of IARU Region
II concluded. Your ARRL delegation has been quite active in all of the
activities and has provided valuable input to the various committees.
The Final Plenary was held today and action was taken on the
committee reports and recommendations. Tonight we will attend a banquet hosted
by LABRE, our sister society in Brazil
hosting the conference.
Tomorrow, most of us will be returning to the U.S. tomorrow
evening. Because of travel connections we won’t actually arrive back in
the U.S.
until Sunday afternoon. Frank Butler and I are on the same flight to Atlanta. We leave Brasilia at 10 AM tomorrow morning but then have an 11
hour layover in Sao Paulo for our flight to Atlanta.
Here is a summary, prepared by Dave K1ZZ, of the action
taken by the final plenary.
Committee A dealing with administrative matters reported
first and made a number of recommendations for Conference action, all of which
were adopted. They include:
- A Region 2 Relief Fund was
established with an initial transfer of US$5,000.00 from the general
reserve of Region 2, with additional contributions to be solicited. The
Fund will be administered by the Executive Committee and will be available
solely to assist Region 2 member societies whose club stations and
buildings, including antenna systems, are damaged by natural disaster.
- Several recommendations from
the Region 2 Working Group on Emergency Communications were adopted. These
include establishing an Emergency Communications Committee that will be responsible
to the Executive Committee for carrying out planning, training, and the
maintenance of equipment and personnel inventories for emergency
assistance deployment.
- To improve communication among
the member societies and the Executive Committee, the Executive Committee
is to develop a conference call process for Region 2 with objectives,
action plans, due dates, and score cards.
- An offer by Radio Club
Argentino to be responsible for translation into Spanish of the IARU
Region 2 electronic bulletin was accepted.
- Terms of reference for the
Amateur Radio in Education Project that was adopted by the 15th General
Assembly in 2004 were revised slightly to simplify the grant application
process and encourage applications.
- The Conference recognized Wolf
Baron, TI2BY, for outstanding service to amateur radio by conducting
on-the-air training on Sunday mornings for more than five years.
Committee A was chaired by Norma Leiva, HR2NL. Jonathan V.
Siverling, WB3ERA served as secretary and interpreter. ARRL Delegate Dave
Sumner was assigned to Committee A.
The report of Committee B/C, a combined technical and
operational committee dealing with both HF and VHF/UHF matters, was received
next. This committee was chaired by Ramón Santoyo, XE1KK, with Paul Rinaldo,
W4RI serving as secretary. ARRL Delegates assigned to Committee B/C were Kay Craigie and Frank Butler. The Plenary adopted
all of the Committee’s recommendations, including:
- A new Region 2 band plan for
160 – 10 meters was adopted, effective January 1, 2008. The new plan
is modeled on one adopted previously by IARU Region 1, with regional
differences taken into account.
- Steps were taken to try to
reduce interference to national emergency nets, including establishing an
inventory of such nets and calling their importance to the attention of
the radio amateur community.
- An IARU Region 2 Diploma was
approved, with some details remaining to be worked out by the Executive
Committee.
- Bill Hays, WJ5O was appointed
Region 2 HF Beacon Coordinator, replacing Peter Jennings, VE3SUN, who
wished to step down.
The next report was from Committee D, the Finance Committee,
chaired by Treasurer Noel Donawa, 9Y4NED. I was the ARRL Delegate assigned to
Committee D. The Plenary accepted two recommendations from Committee D. The
first is an effort to reach out to member societies that have fallen behind in
meeting their dues obligations to Region 2. They are being offered the
opportunity to pay their back dues through 2006 at a 25% discount if they do so
by January 15, 2008. The Plenary also directed the Executive Committee to study
the existing dues structure along with options and alternatives and to report
to the next General Assembly.
The Conference accepted the offer of the Club de Radio Aficionados
de El Salvador
(CRAS) to host the 17th General Assembly in 2010.
The last order of business for the delegates was the
election of officers and other Executive Committee members for the next three
years. Rod Stafford, W6ROD, declined to stand
for re-election as President but will remain a Director. Moving to the office
of President is Secretary Reinaldo Leandro, YV5AMH. Dario Jurado, HP1DJ was
re-elected Vice President and Noel Donawa, 9Y4NED was re-elected Treasurer and
Director. Newly elected as Secretary and joining the Executive Committee for
the first time is Ramón Santoyo, XE1KK. The other Directors were re-elected: Daniel A. Lamoureux, VE2KA, Pedro Rodriguez, CO2RP,
Marco Tulio Gudiel, TG9AGD, Gustavo de Faria Franco, PT2ADM, and Ron Szama,
LU2AH. A provision of the Bylaws was amended to permit the Executive Committee
to consist of ten members rather than the customary nine.
The conferees expressed their deep appreciation to LABRE,
host of the 16th General Assembly, for its outstanding hospitality.
The conference was attended by 40 delegates and observers
representing 18 countries in the Americas, 11 in person and 7 by
proxy.
73 Joel W5ZN
ARRL President & Principal Delegate