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Category: Spectrum

IARU Region 1 announces award of Region 1 Medals
· Spectrum · Sylvain, F4GKR

With the decision to hold the planned October 2021 workshop event virtually, Region 1 is now not able to make planned in-person announcements and presentations of Medals to recognise exceptional support for the Region’s work.

The Executive Committee has therefore decided to move ahead now with the announcement, deferred from the 2020 Virtual General Conference, of the award of Medals to the following six people.

Dave Court, EI3IO: recently retired as SRLC Chair and EC member, who led the SRLC through the period of WRC 19 which resulted in the Region-wide allocation to the amateur service of a 2 MHz segment at 50 MHz.

Dave led the IARU work on this 6 metre allocation and also played a role as a member of the extended EC group. He remains a member of the SRLC.

Hilary Claytonsmith G4JKS, EMC Committee member and until recently its Secretary for nearly 25 years and IARU representative in ETSI during discussions on PLT. The EMC Committee is a forum for progressing the Region’s work on EMC matters and much of its success is due to Hilary’s early work. Hilary remains a member of the EMC Committee.

Peter Jost, HB9CET: Acting IARUMS coordinator for a period until October 2020 and deputy coordinator for many years, Peter continues in this deputy role. Peter has made a major contribution to the IARU MS Newsletters and has developed excellent professional presentation material on the IARUMS work. The IARUMS is internationally recognised for the quality of its work.

Tore Worren, LA9QL: Recently retired as Region 1 EMC Committee Chair and IARU global EMC coordinator, Tore has successfully represented IARU in CISPR and built a core team of around 20 – 25 country EMC specialists who meet regularly to review progress. His foundation work in CISPR has built a strong basis of credibility for IARU in EMC matters. He also played a role as part of the extended EC group. Tore remains a member of the EMC Committee.

Jacques Verleijen, ON4AVJ: Recently retired VHF+ Committee Chair, a post he held since 2014. In that time he has coordinated the work on VHF+ areas, revised the VHF Handbook, developed the Contest Working Group and surveyed MS on VHF+ activity levels. He also played a role as part of the extended EC group. He remains a member of the PRC and Secretary to the VHF+ Committee.

Hans Welens, ON6WQ: Hans built the concept of STARS from 1990, acting as STARS Chairman until 2011. He returned to the role in 2019 on a short-term basis to refocus the work. Hans believes passionately in the need to support the development of smaller societies and through his personal efforts has energetically enabled the development of a number of African societies. Without Hans, STARS would likely not have had the impact it has had.

I hope you will join with me in congratulating these six people who have each made a very significant contribution to IARU Region 1’s work over the years.

Don Beattie, G3BJ, President IARU Region 1

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Recent PRC Activity
· SpectrumTagged , · Nestor, 5B4AHZ

The IARU Region‑1 Political Relations Committee (PRC) has responded to two recent European Commission consultations to promote the amateur radio viewpoint. In the case of the consultation on‘Designing mobile phones and tablets to be sustainable – ecodesign’ the PRCdecided that the most appropriate response was in the form of a written submission.

In the second instance, the consultation on the Delegated Act under the RED on the subject of ‘Internet-connected radio equipment and wearable radio equipment’,the IARU response was one of 26 received by the Commission.

The Delegated Act aims at strengthening the security of internet-connected devices, most of which are expected to be part of the Internet of Things, and of wearable radio equipment. However IARU has concerns as to how the Act will be implemented and how it might affect amateur radio.

The PRC is always looking for new members to help to join the team and contribute to its work. Why not contact the Chair, Séamus EI8BP?

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EC Have your Say
· SpectrumTagged · Nestor, 5B4AHZ

The EC better regulation portal permits citizens and businesses to share their views on new EU policies and existing laws. Currently the Commission has two somewhat related public consultations on EU initiatives:

(1) https://​ec​.europa​.eu/info​/law​/better-regulation​/have-your-say​/initiatives​/2018-Internet-connected-radio-equipment-and-wearable-radio-equipment_en

The title of this initiative is “Internet-connected radio equipment and wearable radio equipment”. This is a proposed Delegated Act under Article 3(3) of RED which has been the subject of discussion for some time.

Inter-connected radio equipment includes virtually all devices that have a network connection. The aim of the ACT is to improve the cybersecurity of these devices by constraining the upload of software. This has potential implications for radio amateurs and experimenters.

(2) https://​ec​.europa​.eu/info​/law​/better-regulation​/have-your-say​/initiatives​/12797-Designing-mobile-phones-and-tablets-to-be-sustainable-ecodesign_en

The title of this initiative is “Designing mobile phones and tablets to be sustainable – ecodesign”.

This has to do with sustainability and re-use of devices and arguably the proposal above under the RED at (1) is at odds with this.

As some background on this subject here is a link to a relevant article (in German): https://​www​.welt​.de/wirtschaft​/article232761335​/Apple-Tesla-Vorwerk-Biden-will-das-Reparatur-Monopol-kippen.html

Here is also a link to a recent ITU News item on product sustainability:

https://​www​.itu​.int/en​/myitu​/News​/2021​/07​/15​/16​/04​/New-ITU-standards-project-to-define-a-sustainability-passport-for-digital-products

EU/EAA based Member Societies or individual radio amateurs may wish to respond to these consultations directly or, alternatively, all who are interested may send their views to the IARU R1 PRC who are preparing a submission (Chair Séamus EI8BP).

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23cm band and Sat-Nav Coexistence: Preliminary Studies considered in ITU‑R WP4C
· Spectrum · Barry, G4SJH

During the period 5 – 13 July 2021, the preparatory work for WRC-23 agenda item 9.1b continued in ITU‑R Working Party 4C (WP4C). (See Region 1 Feb 23rd news item for further background). The IARU member representatives from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Japan, Norway, UK and USA, participated in the meeting and delivered additional information on amateur activities in this key microwave band

Preliminary studies came from France based on the ongoing CEPT work to provide initial estimates of separation distances required between RNSS GALILEO receivers and a sample of amateur emissions. The European Commission GALILEO team provided a set of observations pertaining to a RNSS interference event in northern Italy.

Global IARU Band Plans and RNSS system frequency band overlaps

The work contributed by France, although needing refinement, is going in a good direction, using ITU‑R recommended propagation models and assumptions based on operating scenarios provided by the amateur community. Further work is needed to take account of the large disparity between the RNSS service receiver bandwidths and the frequency band offsets of the amateur applications based on the measurements carried out by Germany.

One example result from a preliminary simulation run

The RNSS community have updated their RNSS receiver protection criteria with an update to ITU‑R Recommendation M.1902 that now includes parameters relevant to the GALILEO E6 signal block. However these criteria only distinguish between a narrow band and wide band interferer level at the receiver and take no account of offset frequency in the receiver bandwidth or any time variance.

The IARU is working to ensure the amateur services are realistically represented in the studies as they move forward. It remains vital that national amateur communities present their views on the importance of this band to their national regulators in a consolidated and consistent manner. The work will continue throughout the year and beyond both in ITU‑R and in the regional telecommunications organisations and the IARU is committed to ensure every group hears the amateur position on this important microwave band.

Click for the summary report from the WP4C meeting.

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