Day four of the Virtual General Conference opened with the final meeting of Committee C4 (HF).

Most of the meetings involved papers relating to band planning issues on the HF bands. Appointments were also considered and agreed for forwarding to the Final Plenary meeting on Friday. 

Committee C3 (Administrative and Organisational) then resumed its work and received reports from the Working Groups and coordinators around IARU Region 1 about the work in their specialist fields. We had also reports from the other Regions (2 North & South America, 3 Eastern Asia & Oceania) by Ramon XE1KK and Ken JA1CJP and from the AC (Administrative Council) by Dave K1ZZ. As part of this, a number of appointments were agreed for recommendation to the final plenary. Finally, further consideration was given to proposed constitutional changes relating to the ability to hold a Virtual General Conference in the future.

Finally, Committee C2 (Credentials and Finance) reviewed the financial position in the Region. Budget requests for funding for special projects were considered and the overall interim budget through to end-2021 was reviewed and agreed. The full three-year budget will be agreed at the in-person workshop and conference in 2021, when it will be able to reflect decisions made in the workshop about strategic priorities. 

One more meeting of Committee C3 is scheduled for Thursday morning, after which documentation will be prepared for the Final Plenary to be held Friday. The next news release will be after the end of the final plenary on Friday evening

The Region 1 Virtual General Conference continued today with three more sessions. The day started with a joint meeting of the Political Relations Committee (PRC) and the Spectrum and Regulatory Affairs Committee (SRLC). Between them, these two committees steer the IARU work in the Region 1 Regional Telecommunications organizations and also in the European Commission. The SRLC also undertakes much of the Region 1 preparatory work for ITU World Radio Conferences.

The Chair of the SRLC, Dave Court, EI3IO, discussed with delegates the work of the Committee and the current challenges IARU faces in its work. Séamus McCague, EI8BP, Chair of the PRC discussed the PRC work in the European Commission and the inputs that had been made on a number of important EU regulatory issues.

Both Chairs encouraged delegates to consider joining the work in spectrum, regulatory and political areas for IARU. Those interested should contact either Dave or Séamus.

The day continued with the second EMC Committee (C7) meeting, at which work in CISPR, the international standards organization was reviewed. The meeting then reviewed the work on the threat of spurious emissions from high power Wireless Power Transmission systems and also heard about the work in South Africa on noise measurement.

Finally the EMC Committee ended with a discussion on the importance of involvement in National Standards Committees and the steps needed to increase the voice of radio services in those forums.

The final meeting of the day was the last meeting of the VHF+ Committee (C5), at which a number of band planning issues were discussed and resolved.

The recommendations of all Committee go forward for ratification in the final Plenary meeting to be held on Friday.

Although this virtual meeting is really effective and productive and the number of participants is really high, the delegates missed the social part of a meeting, a very important part to strengthen the work in some MS.

We are living difficult times, but we can’t standstill.

See you tomorrow for the next update. 

The second full day of the Virtual General Conference opened with the first meeting of Committee C4 (HF). The meeting began with a review of the reports from the Committee Chair, the HF Beacon coordinator and the IARUMS coordinator. Discussions then took place on the way ahead for IARUMS, the IARU Monitoring Service, and a number of issues concerning CW operation. The meeting then review the AROS (Amateur Radio Observation Service) and recommended that the role at the centre of Region 1 should be discontinued, as the focus for the work was at national level. C4 will continue on Wednesday.

The next meeting was the first meeting of Committee C7 (EMC). The meeting reviewed:

• the report from the EMC Committee covering its work since the last conference
• the Region 1 Noise Measurement Campaign, which seeks to measure the degree to which the spectrum noise levels have risen above current ITU‑R mean levels (P.372 – 14)
• the work in CISPR on the impact of the increasing range and number of digital devices emitting spectrum pollution

C7 will continue Tuesday with review and discussion of other areas of work for the Committee, including WPT and a more detailed discussion on CISPR work. 

The day ended with the second meeting of Committee C5 (VHF+) which covered the activities in the VHF+ contesting area, including the IT support from the contest robot and consideration of aspects of the rules of some of the VHF+ contests. An additional meeting was held in the evening to further consider aspects of the VHF contest computerised contest checking system (“the robot”).

The final meeting of C5 will be on Tuesday.

Most conference sessions are attracting some 80 or so delegates, with a lively level of discussion. All papers and minutes are available on the contest server at www​.conf​.iaru​-r1​.org