GAREC-2006, the second Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Conference, is scheduled to take place on June 19-20, 2006, again in Tampere, Finland. In particular for participants from outside of Europe it might be of interest that this date is just before HamRadio-2006 in Friedrichshafen Germany, announced for 23-25 June 2006.

GAREC-2006 will be a parallel event to the International Conference on Emergency Communications, ICEC-2006, which will review the present status of implementation and application of the Tampere Convention on the Provision of Telecommunications for Disaster Mitigation and Relief Operations. This international treaty, adopted by the ICET-98 Conference in Tampere in 1998 has entered into force in January 2005, and ICEC-2006 shall also assist those States, which are not yet parties to the Convention. Holding GAREC-2006 parallel to ICEC-2006 will provide additional visibility for the work of the Amateur Radio Service in emergency communications.

Dr. Pekka Tarjanne, the former Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), is chairing the organizing committee, which also includes representatives of the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority.

Details on ICEC-2006 and GAREC-2006 will become available in January 2006. Information will be posted at URL http://www.rientola.fi/oh3ag/garec/index.html.