NEWS RELEASE

International Amateur Radio Union
P.O. Box 310905
Newington, CT 06131-0905 USA
FAX: +1 860 594 0259
E-Mail: www.iaru.org

27 February 2002

For immediate release

World Amateur Radio Day Celebrates Amateurs' Continuing Innovation in Communication Technology

Amid the much-publicized commercial successes and failures in the telecommunications industry it is easy to overlook the fact that radio amateurs continue to be an important source of innovation in communication technology.

A century has passed since Marconi spanned the Atlantic and excited the imaginations of the first generation of amateur wireless experimenters. Amateurs were the first to discover and to exploit the remarkable properties of the ionosphere that permit worldwide communication with less power than it takes to illuminate a light bulb. They were the first to make widespread use of single-sideband voice communication to conserve power and precious radio spectrum. Amateurs applied microprocessors to data communication, popularizing packet radio and developing protocols that are now in widespread use in public safety and other services.

As we enter radio's second century, amateurs continue to lead the way in numerous areas. World Amateur Radio Day, held each year on 18 April to mark the anniversary of the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union in Paris on that date in 1925, provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on these current achievements.

Digital HF Radio: Radio amateurs are the leading developers of new digital techniques for high-frequency (HF) data and text communication. For example, PacTOR combines the strengths of packet radio and the mode known commercially as SITOR to offer reliable and essentially error-free data communication. Disaster relief agencies have adopted it for use from remote locations where no telecommunications infrastructure is available. PSK31 is a user-friendly mode that provides live keyboard communication at low transmitter power levels when error correction is not required. An implementation of PSK31 using computer sound cards has made this the most popular digital mode for radio amateurs in less than two years. Other developers, building on the success of PSK31, are using sound cards to explore a wide range of other digital modes tailored for the challenging HF environment.

Software Defined Radios: Perhaps the outstanding example of a DSP radio designed for experimental use is the DSP-10, a transceiver for the 144-MHz amateur band designed by Bob Larkin, W7PUA, of Corvallis, Oregon, USA. Working with Mr. Larkin, a team of amateur software developers is refining a family of programs tailored to explore a wide range of VHF, UHF, and microwave propagation media, including moonbounce (Earth-Moon-Earth) and extended-range tropospheric scatter. These are but examples of what is happening in the 21^st Century Amateur Radio Service.

The IARU is the worldwide federation of national Amateur Radio organizations representing radio amateurs in 153 countries. It is a Sector Member of the International Telecommunication Union and is the recognized representative of the Amateur and Amateur-Satellite Services at the ITU.