Every April 18, radio ama­teurs world­wide take to the air­waves in cel­e­bra­tion of World Ama­teur Radio Day. It was on this day in 1925 that the Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union was formed in Paris.

Ama­teur Radio exper­i­menters were the first to dis­cov­er that the short wave spec­trum — far from being a waste­land — could sup­port world­wide prop­a­ga­tion. In the rush to use these short­er wave­lengths, Ama­teur Radio was “in grave dan­ger of being pushed aside,” the IARU’s his­to­ry has not­ed. Ama­teur Radio pio­neers met in Paris in 1925 and cre­at­ed the IARU to sup­port Ama­teur Radio worldwide.

Just two years lat­er, at the Inter­na­tion­al Radiotele­graph Con­fer­ence, Ama­teur Radio gained the allo­ca­tions still rec­og­nized today — 160, 80, 40, 20, and 10 meters. Since its found­ing, the IARU has worked tire­less­ly to defend and expand the fre­quen­cy allo­ca­tions for Ama­teur Radio. Thanks to the sup­port of enlight­ened admin­is­tra­tions in every part of the globe, radio ama­teurs are now able to exper­i­ment and com­mu­ni­cate in fre­quen­cy bands strate­gi­cal­ly locat­ed through­out the radio spec­trum. From the 25 coun­tries that formed the IARU in 1925, the IARU has grown to include 160 mem­ber-soci­eties in three regions. IARU Region 1 includes Europe, Africa, the Mid­dle East, and North­ern Asia. Region 2 cov­ers the Amer­i­c­as, and Region 3 is com­prised of Aus­tralia, New Zealand, the Pacif­ic island nations, and most of Asia. The Inter­na­tion­al Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Union (ITU) has rec­og­nized the IARU as rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of Ama­teur Radio.

Today, Ama­teur Radio is more pop­u­lar than ever, with more than 3,000,000 licensed operators!

World Ama­teur Radio Day is the day when IARU Mem­ber-Soci­eties can show our capa­bil­i­ties to the pub­lic and enjoy glob­al friend­ship with oth­er Ama­teurs worldwide.

We have pro­vid­ed a poster for World Ama­teur Radio Day. Any club may down­load it and use it to pro­mote WARD in their area. The poster comes in two sizes: 61cm x 91cm and a small (A4) fly­er.

Groups should pro­mote their WARD activ­i­ty on social media by using the hash tag #Worl­dA­ma­teur­Ra­dio­Day on Twit­ter and Face­book. IARU will list all WARD activ­i­ties on this page. To have your WARD activ­i­ty list­ed, send an email to IARU Sec­re­tary David Sum­n­er, K1ZZ.

April 18 is the day for all of Ama­teur Radio to cel­e­brate and tell the world about the sci­ence we can help teach, the com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice we can pro­vide and the fun we have.

We hope you will join in the fun and edu­ca­tion that is World Ama­teur Radio Day! The theme for 2020 is “Cel­e­brat­ing Ama­teur Radio’s Con­tri­bu­tion to Society.”

• The Echolink World Con­fer­ence and irlp 9251 is going to help cel­e­brate World Ama­teur Radio Day on Sat­ur­day April 18 from 12am to 12 am April 19^th. The spe­cial event call­sign will be W7W. Hope you are able to check in. — Tom AF7J