IARU Region 3 Conference - Day 3

Day 3 of the IARU Region 3 Conference has ended and the Working Groups have completed their assignments. Today's discussion of paper submissions included amateur radio education in schools, reciprocal licensing issues and Region 3 financial matters. The morning began following the daily plenary with an NZART presentation about a program they had designed to educate school children about physics and radio wave theory. Their technique involved a very small UHF transmitter (a single stage small PNP transistor) and a separate receiver with an analog meter to measure signal strength. Both contained small dipole antennas. The polarization of the transmit signal could be rotated and the decrease in signal strength seen on the meter. Several experiments were performed using the signal strength meter to show reflected RF energy as well as energy blocked or attenuated by various materials placed between the xmit and recv antenna. While this demonstration is quite simple and was designed for school children, frankly it would be very appropriate for many amateur club meetings in the U.S. to educate some currently licensed (new and old!) as well as at amateur radio license classes. Ad-hoc Working Group 3 adopted a formal guideline to submit to the IARU Administrative Council pertaining to the IARU Monitoring Service that I reported to you in previous email reports. The final working group document has been revised (improved) slightly from the draft sent to you yesterday that should improve the efficiency of the service in addressing intruders and harmful interference from transmitters not authorized to operate in allocations to the Amateur Radio Service. Tomorrow (Thursday) no formal agenda meetings are scheduled. This is customary among the conferences in order to give the committee or working group chairperson and secretary time to prepare their final report and recommendations from the committee and distribute the documents to the delegates for review and consideration prior to the final plenary on Friday where they will be considered for adoption. This evening JARL hosted a dinner for the conference delegates and guests. JARL President Shozo Hara was unable to attend the conference this year due to a heath matter but sent along his greetings wishes via the JARL delegation (by far the largest delegation to the conference as customary) to the delegates. I do not plan a report Thursday since no formal activity is scheduled however I do plan a report from the Final Plenary on Friday. This report is being typed at 10:00 PM Wednesday evening ZL time, 4:00 AM Wednesday morning EDT. 73 Joel W5ZN
participants (1)
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Joel Harrison