ITU-R Working Party 5 meeting, Bucharest, Romania. 6-17 July 2015

Dale Hughes, VK1DSH attended the most recent Working Party meeting of the International Telecommunications Union in Bucharest, Romania. Dale attended as a member of the Australian delegation (headed by the ACMA) and the trip was part funded by the WIA. WP 5A is responsible for studies related amateur and amateur-satellite services and a number of other radio communication services. Under WP5A is Working Group 5A-1 which is responsible for the amateur and amateur-satellite service.

At this meeting the amateur service was represented by Dale as chairman of WG5A-1, Brennan Price N4QX (USA, Brennan is also the ARRL Chief Technology Officer), Ole Garpestad LA2RR (IARU), Hans Blondeel Timmerman PB2T (Netherlands) and Ken Yamamoto JA1CJP (Japan); a number of other non-amateur ITU delegates also attended WG5A-1 meetings. During this WP5 meeting there were no formal discussions by WG5A-1 covering World Radiocommunications Conference agenda items as all studies assigned to WG5A-1 have been completed and approved. During this meeting WG5A-1 considered updates and revisions to four existing ITU-R questions and recommendations:

1. Recommendation ITU-R M.1544 MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS OF RADIO AMATEURS.

2. Question ITU-R 48 Techniques and frequency usage in the amateur service and amateur-satellite service.

3. QUESTION ITU-R 2095 Use of the mobile, amateur and the amateur-satellite services in support of disaster radiocommunications.

4. Recommendation ITU-R M.1732 Characteristics of systems operating in the amateur and amateur-satellite services for use in sharing studies.

These documents are important as they lay the foundation for the amateur licence conditions in many countries, as well as outlining technical details of amateur stations for WRC agenda item sharing and compatibility studies. The ITU has made most of radiocommunications reports and recommendations freely available to the general public via the following Link

Aside from the formal meetings there were informal discussions about WRC-15 agenda item 1.4 (a possible secondary amateur allocation around 5300 kHz) which is going to be a difficult issue due to the divergent range of national positions on the issue. These discussions will continue at the upcoming APG15-5 meeting in Seoul in late July. Unfortunately due to military usage of spectrum around 5300 kHz, exact details of the discussions are confidential.

During the week the amateur members of WG5A-1 met with members of the Federation of Romanian Radio Amateurs and discussed a number of issues related to WRC-15 agenda items as well as the possibility of opening up the new 630 m amateur band in Romania. It was exciting to learn that amateurs are active and well represented in Romania!

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