Effec­tive on 21 April 2020, Japan­ese ama­teurs can oper­ate in expand­ed fre­quen­cy seg­ments on 160m and 80m bands as described below.

160m band

          1,800 — 1,810 kHz   All Modes (New segment)

          1,810 — 1,825 kHz   CW (Exist­ing segment)

          1,825 — 1,875 kHz   All Modes (New segment)

          1,907.5 — 1912.5 kHz        CW, NB Data (Exist­ing segment)

 80m band

          3,500 — 3,520 kHz   CW (Exist­ing segment)

          3,520 ‑3,535 kHz              CW, NB Data (Exist­ing segment)

          3,535 — 3,575 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image (Exist­ing segment)

                             (NB Data allowed for Inter­na­tion­al communication)

          3,575 — 3,580 kHz   All Modes (New segment)

          3,599 — 3,612 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image/Data (Exist­ing segment)

          3,662 — 3,680 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image (New segment)

          3,680 — 3,687 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image (Exist­ing segment)

          3,702 – 3,716 kHz  CW, NB Phone/Image (Exist­ing segment)

          3,745 — 3,770 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image (Exist­ing segment)

          3,791 — 3,805 kHz   CW, NB Phone/Image (Exist­ing segment)

73 de JARL (Japan Ama­teur Radio League)

On the eve of World Ama­teur Radio Day the ITU has pub­lished an inter­view with IARU Pres­i­dent Tim Ellam, VE6SH.

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More infor­ma­tion about World Ama­teur Radio Day, 18 April, is avail­able at https://www.iaru.org/on-the-air/world-amateur-radio-day/

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.

As I write this the world is in the midst of bat­tling the COVID-19 cri­sis. A few short weeks ago many of us could not imag­ine the lev­els of iso­la­tion that we are now deal­ing with and the sac­ri­fices of many on the front­lines of the pan­dem­ic. As we have done in past chal­lenges to our soci­ety, Ama­teur Radio will play a key part in keep­ing peo­ple con­nect­ed and assist­ing those who need support.

Hav­ing come off my own 14-day iso­la­tion after return­ing from an over­seas trip, I am touched by the kind­ness of strangers who assist­ed me when I was unable to leave my house. It strikes me Ama­teur Radio oper­a­tors, who give so much dur­ing these times of cri­sis, are not lim­it­ed to assist­ing over the air. Ama­teurs are true vol­un­teers and I would encour­age every­one to assist in the com­mu­ni­ty as they are able to.

My wish for this World Ama­teur Radio Day, April 18, is for every­one to stay safe, fol­low the advice of med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and use Ama­teur Radio and your skills to help us through this crisis.

– Tim Ellam, VE6SH, IARU President

Sev­er­al IARU mem­ber-soci­eties have announced that they are unable to receive ship­ments of QSL cards for their bureaus dur­ing the COVID-19 emer­gency. Before send­ing ship­ments of QSL cards to a nation­al QSL bureau the IARU strong­ly rec­om­mends an inquiry to the mem­ber-soci­ety to con­firm that the pack­age can be accepted.