Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union Pres­i­dent, Tim Ellam VE6SH/G4HUA told the
Glob­al Forum on Emer­gency Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions that Ama­teur Radio is probably
more rel­e­vant now than it was 25 years ago.

The Inter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union event GET-2016 was held in Kuwait
City on Jan­u­ary 26–28 with a slo­gan of ‘Sav­ing lives’.
In an inter­view at the con­fer­ence Tim VE6SH/G4HUA said: “We’re so dependent
now on all kinds of sys­tems of com­mu­ni­ca­tions — every­one has a cell phone, every­one is used to using the Inter­net — but they’re not used to what hap­pens when those sys­tems go down.
He fur­ther said: “Ama­teur Radio is there. It relies on some­what old fash­ioned tech­nol­o­gy, but there are also advance­ments in tech­nol­o­gy that we rely on.
Hams can use com­put­er-based dig­i­tal tech­niques to pass mes­sage traf­fic at very low pow­er lev­els and under poor prop­a­ga­tion conditions.
Tim VE6SH/G4HUA said: “Ama­teur Radio has kept pace by devel­op­ing new ways to communicate.
He high­light­ed IARU con­cerns that radio ama­teurs face a num­ber of dif­fi­cul­ties in a few coun­tries, includ­ing delays in get­ting a licence, high duties on import­ed equip­ment, while some make it hard to erect anten­nas and sup­port structures.
Tim VE6SH/G4HUA also spoke to ses­sions of GET-2016. Radio ama­teurs are on the ground, often close to the site of a dis­as­ter, or might even be in it.
He told a Lead­ers’ Dia­logue forum: “They’re there. They’re ready to go. For the first 24 to 48 hours you have peo­ple on the ground, ready to assist.
“They own their own equip­ment. They don’t rely on com­mer­cial net­works. If cel­lu­lar ser­vice goes down, we can assist by using HF or VHF or UHF com­mu­ni­ca­tions on a peer-to-peer basis.
The typ­i­cal radio ama­teur, like Tim him­self, are not engi­neers or do not work in a tech­ni­cal field, but know enough to get on the air using alter­nate pow­er sources and a very sim­ple wire antenna.
He told those at the the Lead­ers Dia­logue forum: “Don’t for­get the Ama­teur Radio ser­vices.… they’re a great asset to you in times of crisis.”
The ITU described GET-2016 as an inter­na­tion­al plat­form to dis­cuss top­ics relat­ed to world­wide emer­gency telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion pol­i­cy and dis­as­ter risk reduction.
— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee