At the glob­al lev­el the IARU rec­og­nizes its most ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers with the fol­low­ing awards.

Michael J. Owen, VK3KI, was involved with the IARU for over 40 years before his untime­ly death in 2012. His mul­ti­ple roles as a vol­un­teer includ­ed time as a Direc­tor and Chair­man of Region 3 and as IARU Vice Pres­i­dent and Tech­ni­cal Expert, in addi­tion to extra­or­di­nary accom­plish­ments as Pres­i­dent of the Wire­less Insti­tute of Aus­tralia. He made sub­stan­tial con­tri­bu­tions of his time and skill before and dur­ing both WARC-79 and WRC-03.

The Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil estab­lished the Michael J. Owen, VK3KI, Memo­r­i­al Award in 2012 to per­pet­u­ate his mem­o­ry and to rec­og­nize those out­stand­ing vol­un­teers whose excep­tion­al ser­vice to the IARU reflect the spir­it, hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of our depart­ed friend and colleague.

The award is reserved for indi­vid­u­als who have served in mul­ti­ple capac­i­ties in the IARU (includ­ing its mem­ber-soci­eties and region­al orga­ni­za­tions) over a con­sid­er­able peri­od of time and whose work and ded­i­ca­tion have mate­ri­al­ly ben­e­fit­ed the IARU. An award may not be made every year. Nom­i­na­tions for the award, along with any writ­ten sup­port­ing infor­ma­tion or mate­r­i­al, should be sent to the IARU Sec­re­tary no lat­er than 30 days before an Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil meeting.

Award recip­i­ents to date:

• Woj­ciech Nietyk­sza, SP5FM (Vot­ed Sep­tem­ber 2013, pre­sent­ed May 2014)
• Dr. David A. Ward­law, VK3ADW (Vot­ed Sep­tem­ber 2013, pre­sent­ed June 2014)
• David Sum­n­er, K1ZZ (Feb­ru­ary 2016)
• Rod Stafford, W6ROD (Octo­ber 2016)

There are three addi­tion­al cat­e­gories of awards for IARU vol­un­teers and oth­ers. The awards are made at the dis­cre­tion of the IARU offi­cers upon the nom­i­na­tion of an indi­vid­ual by any of the offi­cers or any mem­ber of the Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil. They con­sist of a plaque or cer­tifi­cate, depend­ing on the cat­e­go­ry under which the indi­vid­ual is nom­i­nat­ed, with appro­pri­ate word­ing to reflect the basis on which the award has been earned. Where pos­si­ble, the award will be pre­sent­ed by one of the IARU offi­cers. The awards are avail­able to indi­vid­u­als who meet one of the fol­low­ing criteria:

IARU Dia­mond Award: An IARU vol­un­teer of long stand­ing who has pro­vid­ed ser­vices over a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of years and has shown excep­tion­al dili­gence dur­ing a long peri­od of ser­vice. Exam­ples: an indi­vid­ual who has act­ed as a coor­di­na­tor in one of the vol­un­teer posi­tions, indi­vid­u­als who have vol­un­teered to rep­re­sent IARU at ITU meet­ings over a num­ber of cycles, and IARU tech­ni­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives who have per­formed work above and beyond what is expect­ed of them over a num­ber of years. Recog­ni­tion is in the form of a par­tic­u­lar­ly attrac­tive plaque.

IARU Gold Award: An IARU vol­un­teer who has a long record of con­sis­tent ser­vice, or who may have not been in that posi­tion for a sig­nif­i­cant time but has pro­vid­ed ser­vices to a spe­cif­ic, longer term goal of the IARU. Exam­ple: vol­un­teers for a sin­gle WRC/WTDC cycle or indi­vid­u­als who have per­formed a time con­sum­ing, extra­or­di­nary role for the IARU. Recog­ni­tion is in the form of a plaque.

IARU Sil­ver Award: An IARU vol­un­teer or oth­er indi­vid­ual who per­forms a sin­gle “one off” role for IARU that is note­wor­thy and val­ued by the orga­ni­za­tion. This might include sig­nif­i­cant assis­tance by a non-ama­teur at a WRC or RTO meet­ing or an action by an indi­vid­ual ama­teur from a mem­ber-soci­ety that has ben­e­fits for all ama­teurs. Recog­ni­tion is in the form of a certificate.

The fol­low­ing Dia­mond Awards have been made:

• 2016: Chris­t­ian M. Ver­holt, OZ8CY
• 2016: Hans van de Groe­nen­daal, ZS6AKV
• 2017: Atti­la Matas, HB9IAJ
• 2017: Thi­lo Kootz, DL9KCE
• 2018: Dale E. Hugh­es, VK1DSH
• 2018: Hans Zim­mer­mann, HB9AQS/F5VKP
• 2019: Wolf­gang Hadel, DK2OM (to be pre­sent­ed in 2020)

Addi­tion­al recip­i­ents of the Dia­mond Award and Gold Award have been select­ed and will be announced at the appro­pri­ate time.

The region­al IARU orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nize their vol­un­teers through sep­a­rate programs.