The IARU HF World Cham­pi­onship is lit­tle more than two months away. It is essen­tial that the glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic must be tak­en into account when plan­ning par­tic­i­pa­tion, includ­ing by IARU mem­ber-soci­ety HQ sta­tion teams.

Mul­ti Oper­a­tor and IARU Mem­ber Soci­ety HQ Sta­tion oper­a­tions must adhere strict­ly to the reg­u­la­tions and phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing guide­lines issued by the respon­si­ble health author­i­ties and the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion and in effect at the time of the event, even if observ­ing the guide­lines is not legal­ly required in their loca­tions. This require­ment also applies to Sin­gle Oper­a­tor sta­tions and espe­cial­ly to those host­ing guest oper­a­tors. This may reduce par­tic­i­pa­tion but it is vital that the IARU, its mem­ber soci­eties, and indi­vid­ual radio ama­teurs behave as respon­si­ble mem­bers of the glob­al community.

Radio ama­teurs should always look for oppor­tu­ni­ties to address com­mu­ni­ca­tion chal­lenges through the appli­ca­tion of tech­nol­o­gy. Grow­ing num­bers of sta­tions includ­ing Mul­ti Oper­a­tor sta­tions are capa­ble of being oper­at­ed remote­ly. The IARU encour­ages their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the HF World Cham­pi­onship wher­ev­er nation­al reg­u­la­tions permit.

The objec­tive of the IARU HF World Cham­pi­onship is “to sup­port ama­teur self-train­ing in radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tions includ­ing improv­ing ama­teur oper­at­ing skills, con­duct­ing tech­ni­cal inves­ti­ga­tions, and inter­com­mu­ni­cat­ing with oth­er ama­teurs around the world, espe­cial­ly IARU mem­ber soci­ety head­quar­ters sta­tions, using the 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10-meter bands.” The spe­cial rules gov­ern­ing IARU Mem­ber Soci­ety HQ Sta­tions allow for mul­ti­ple sites to be used, again sub­ject to nation­al reg­u­la­tions. HQ sta­tions will be able to be active, but pos­si­bly not at their usu­al level.

Plans are being devel­oped for the IARU Head­quar­ters sta­tion, NU1AW, to be oper­at­ed entire­ly remotely.