The 64th meet­ing of the IARU Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil (AC) was held in per­son Sep­tem­ber 24, 2026 in Vien­na, Aus­tria fol­low­ing the IARU Region 1 Gen­er­al Conference.

The IARU offi­cers pre­sent­ed reports high­light­ing IARU’s core respon­si­bil­i­ty of spec­trum defense and glob­al pro­mo­tion of the Ama­teur and Ama­teur Satel­lite Ser­vices. IARU is for­tu­nate to have a host of vol­un­teer sub­ject mat­ter experts who rep­re­sent our posi­tions at the ITU and region­al tele­com orga­ni­za­tions. IARU always seeks addi­tion­al qual­i­fied sub­ject mat­ter experts in var­i­ous areas who are able to serve in a vol­un­tary capacity.

Reports were received from the IARU coor­di­na­tors for Bea­cons, Satel­lite Coor­di­na­tion, Elec­tro­mag­net­ic Com­pat­i­bil­i­ty (EMC), and the Intrud­er Watch & Mon­i­tor­ing Service.

The IARU offi­cers had pre­vi­ous­ly received con­cerns from mem­ber soci­eties regard­ing con­test-style oper­a­tion occur­ring on the 30‑, 17‑, and 12-meter bands. Fol­low­ing a review and dis­cus­sion of IARU Res­o­lu­tion 17–1 the Res­o­lu­tion was revised as follows:

RESOLUTION 17–1

As amend­ed at Vien­na 2026

Con­cern­ing the use of sec­ondary and nar­row allo­ca­tions below 25 MHz. The IARU Admin­is­tra­tive Coun­cil, Land­shut, 2017, rec­og­niz­ing that the ama­teur ser­vice allo­ca­tions at 135.7–137.8 kHz, 472–479 kHz, 5,351.5–5,366.5 kHz, and 10.1–10.15 MHz are on a sec­ondary basis with oth­er ser­vices hav­ing pri­or­i­ty, and fur­ther rec­og­niz­ing that the allo­ca­tions at 18.068–18.168 MHz and 24.890–24.990 MHz are also rel­a­tive­ly nar­row, and acknowl­edg­ing that these bands there­fore are unable to sup­port coor­di­nat­ed, com­pet­i­tive activ­i­ties with­out exces­sive dis­rup­tion to pri­ma­ry users and oth­er legit­i­mate pur­suits, express­es appre­ci­a­tion to the spon­sors of com­pet­i­tive activ­i­ties who uni­ver­sal­ly avoid uti­liz­ing these bands, resolves that it is IARU pol­i­cy that coor­di­nat­ed, com­pet­i­tive activ­i­ties not be per­mit­ted in these bands, and strong­ly encour­ages all radio ama­teurs to observe the respec­tive region­al band plans for these and all oth­er ama­teur allocations.

The AC approved an ini­tia­tive to rec­og­nize Morse Code as an Intan­gi­ble Her­itage. Region 1 is mov­ing to have the sub­ject on the agen­da for a forth­com­ing UNESCO meet­ing, and IARU will request a let­ter of sup­port from the ITU Secretary-General.

Pres­i­dent Ellam announced the ITU Plenipo­ten­tiary Con­fer­ence will be held in Doha, Qatar in 2026. The “Plenipot” is the supreme organ of the ITU and is a treaty-mak­ing con­fer­ence. It is com­posed of all 194 ITU Mem­ber states and meets every four years. The Con­fer­ence deter­mines the poli­cies, direc­tion and activ­i­ties of the ITU, as well as elect­ing the posi­tions at the sec­re­tari­at, name­ly the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, the Deputy Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, and the Direc­tors of the Radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Stan­dard­iza­tion, and Devel­op­ment Bureau. ITU‑R Direc­tor Mario Man­awe­icz has reached the end of the term of his office and will not be eli­gi­ble for re-election.

Vice Pres­i­dent Wrede report­ed on WRC-27 prepa­ra­tions, not­ing the ITU has announced that Shang­hai, Chi­na will be the loca­tion for WRC27 from Octo­ber 18 through Novem­ber 12, 2027. The IARU WRC27 posi­tion paper has been dis­trib­uted to Mem­ber Soci­eties. Cur­rent­ly some sec­ondary ama­teur allo­ca­tions are men­tioned in WRC-27 Agen­da Items (AI) but for now there is no direct threat iden­ti­fied to ama­teur ser­vice allo­ca­tions. The next steps in IARU prepa­ra­tions include review­ing and updat­ing the IARU Posi­tion­ing Doc­u­ment dur­ing the next WP 5A meet­ing, focus­ing on AI 7 and AI 10; solic­it­ing fur­ther input from the Regions and their respec­tive RTOs; plan­ning IARU’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in WRC-27 and atten­dance at CPM27‑2 (April 5–15, 2027); and attend­ing WP 5A meet­ings in Novem­ber 2026 and May 2027.

The AC not­ed the pro­pos­al to restruc­ture IARU, which had been pre­sent­ed at pre­vi­ous region­al con­fer­ences and to the Inter­na­tion­al Sec­re­tari­at (IS), was no longer being pur­sued in light of feed­back from Mem­ber Soci­eties. The AC is review­ing the IARU Con­sti­tu­tion, last revised in 1989, to iden­ti­fy areas that need updat­ing to reflect cur­rent oper­at­ing practices.

The theme for World Ama­teur Radio Day 2027 “Ama­teur Radio: Con­nect­ing Gen­er­a­tions, Inspir­ing the Future” was approved by the AC. This on-the-air event, held annu­al­ly on April 18, rec­og­nizes the day in 1925 that the Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union was formed in Paris.

Mem­bers attend­ing the meet­ing were IARU Pres­i­dent Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA; Vice Pres­i­dent Thomas Wrede, DF2OO; Sec­re­tary Joel Har­ri­son, W5ZN; Syl­vain Azar­i­an, F4GKR, Pres­i­dent, and Mats Espling, SM6EAN, Sec­re­tary, IARU Region 1; Jose Arturo Moli­na, YS1MS, Pres­i­dent, and Rod Stafford, W6ROD, Sec­re­tary, IARU Region 2; and Wis­nu Wid­ja­ja, YB0AZ, Chair­man, and Ken Yamamo­to, JA1CJP, Sec­re­tary, IARU Region 3. Also par­tic­i­pat­ing at the invi­ta­tion of the AC was Region 1 Pres­i­dent-Elect Hans Blondeel Tim­mer­man, PB2T.

The Sum­ma­ry Record from the meet­ing may be viewed here