IARU Region 1 Spectrum Affairs Chair Barry Lewis, G4SJH, reports that efforts continue in defending the interests of amateur radio during preparations by CEPT — the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations — for World Radiocommunication Conference 2023 (WRC-23). The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) sponsors the WRC. Meeting on May 21, the IARU worked with CEPT regional telecommunications organizations (RTOs) at the third meeting of the Conference Preparatory Group (CPG). The CPG is the parent group in CEPT that oversees the development of the CEPT Briefs for each WRC-23 agenda item, and reviews the progress of individual project teams under the CPG umbrella.

IARU put forward the agreed preliminary IARU positions for agenda items that could affect amateur radio. IARU’s overall objective is to safeguard the allocations to the Amateur and Amateur-Satellite services in the co- and adjacent-frequency bands within the scope of each agenda item. CEPT Briefs include a specific section in which the views of all the recognized international and regional organizations can be placed, and IARU’s views are now in this section of the draft briefs for each agenda item of interest.

The meeting also heard presentations from other Region 1 RTOs, as well as organizations from Region 2 and Region 3 about their preparations. These presentations and the CEPT meeting document drafts are available via the CEPT website. The IARU Spectrum and Regulatory Liaison Committee (SRLC) continues to be active in all the CEPT project teams dealing with the WRC preparation.

The SRLC Report on the CPG meeting is available here.

A list of the CPG Project Teams and applicable WRC-23 Agenda Items can be seen here.

In other IARU news, IARU member-societies have voted to admit new members representing amateur radio interests in Kyrgyzstan and Bahrain. The Amateur Radio Union of the Kyrgyz Republic (ARUKR) was founded in 1993. The Bahrain Amateur Radio Society (BARS)