Press Release, 14 April 2018

IARU Region 3 50^th Anniversary 

 

14^th April is a red let­ter day for radio ama­teurs in Asia and Pacif­ic being the date on which IARU Region 3 was estab­lished in 1968

From a small begin­ning at a con­fer­ence in Syd­ney Aus­tralia on 12th through 14th April 1968, the IARU Region 3 is now a very well devel­oped organ­i­sa­tion rep­re­sent­ing and safe­guard­ing the inter­ests of radio ama­teurs in the region.

In Syd­ney in 1968 the par­tic­i­pants were of the opin­ion that the organ­i­sa­tion should achieve two objectives:

a)     Ulti­mate Aim – To estab­lish and main­tain con­tin­u­al liai­son between Region 3 coun­tries with a view to pre­sent­ing a unit­ed front at future ITU con­fer­ences and to main­tain a pro­gram of assis­tance to devel­op­ing countries.

b)     Imme­di­ate Aim – At Syd­ney in 1968, to estab­lish an admin­is­tra­tive and orga­ni­za­tion­al frame­work to enable the achieve­ment of the ulti­mate aim, fol­low­ing per­haps the pat­tern of Region 1 and Region 2.

The par­tic­i­pants were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Aus­tralia (WIA), Japan (JARL), New Zealand (NZART), Philip­pines (PARA) and the Pres­i­dent of IARU (W0DX).  Sup­port for the meet­ing and apolo­gies from Cey­lon, India, South Korea, Laos, Thai­land, Unit­ed King­dom and Hong Kong.  W0DX was appoint­ed to preside.

 

At Con­fer­ences in Tokyo in 1971 and Hong Kong in 1975, the fur­ther work­ing details were for­mu­lat­ed keep­ing in mind:

1. Region 3 is very wide spread extend­ing half way round the world and hav­ing areas in the trop­ics and both tem­per­a­ture zones.
2. Region 3 con­tains half the world’s pop­u­la­tion, but has the low­est resources per capi­ta in its over­all economy.
3. To do what should be done for ama­teur radio in Region 3 was a mam­moth task, to which those present could well con­tribute, but for which they could not assume full responsibility.
4. Recog­nis­ing the impor­tant vot­ing strength of Region 3 gov­ern­ments in ITU con­fer­ences a most impor­tant objec­tive was to influ­ence them towards favourable ama­teur radio poli­cies, even in advance of prac­ti­cal progress in the respec­tive countries.
5. A region­al orga­ni­za­tion could pro­mote peri­od­ic meet­ings of Region 3 soci­ety rep­re­sen­ta­tives, to advance IARU objec­tives, such meet­ings ful­fill­ing a need not oth­er­wise pro­vid­ed for in the over­all IARU set-up.

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Tri­en­ni­al con­fer­ences have been held since then at reg­u­lar 3 – year­ly inter­vals to decide on the direc­tors for the next tri­en­ni­um, to review work done and decide on poli­cies and pri­or­i­ties for the future.

 

IARU Region 3 has since its for­ma­tion, pro­vid­ed sub­stan­tial sup­port for the soci­eties and their mem­bers spread out all over Asia and Pacific.

 

Stop Press: IARU Region 3 plans to pro­mote the oper­a­tion of Spe­cial Call Sign sta­tions by the Mem­ber Soci­eties and to issue the 50^th Anniver­sary Award to those who make QSOs with these Spe­cial Call Sign sta­tions. More details are to be announced.