World Amateur Radio Day - 18th April

     Each year on 18 April, radio amateurs celebrate World Amateur Radio Day.
On that day in 1925 the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) was founded.
They are best recognised for their contribution to disaster relief workers in areas
where communications are little to non-existent.

This year's theme for World Amateur Radio Day is:
 "Amateur Radio: Your gateway to wireless communications"

Amateur radio has truly entered the 21st Century. In less than 100 years amateur radio
communications has evolved from crude spark-gap technology to digital signal processing
and software-defined radios. The amateur's HF choice between voice and CW has been
expanded to a broad range of communication choices from television to spread spectrum.

Amateur digital communications has evolved. At the end of World War II until the early
1980's, radioteletype, also known as RTTY, was the only HF digital mode available to
amateurs. In the 1980's, AMTOR made its debut along with the increased popularity
and availability of personal computers. AMTOR was the first amateur digital communication
mode to offer error-free text transmission.

From the early 1980's, the rate of change increased dramatically. Packet Radio emerged and
for a period of time was the most popular form of amateur digital communication.
As microprocessor technology became more sophisticated, there was a rise in modes such
as Clover, PACTOR, and G-TOR that were capable of error-free exchanges under marginal
band conditions. In the late 1990's, there was an invention that harnessed personal computer
technology to create PSK31.

In the VHF-UHF frequency ranges, Packet Radio had less activity at the close of the century
than it did in the 1980's and 1990's. However, Packet Radio was reborn as the popular
Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) and traditional packet systems still exist to
support public service activities with greatly enhanced functionality.

Thanks to individual amateurs, hams now enjoy digital meteor scatter contacts and even
moonbounce on VHF and UHF frequencies with modest stations. An ordinary computer
sound device and software that can be downloaded free from the internet is all that is needed.

The Japan Amateur Radio League developed the D-STAR digital voice and data standard
and there has been significant amateur growth as amateurs establish D-STAR repeater
 networks on the VHF, UHF and microwave bands.

All of these development have inspired amateurs around the world to experiment in their
own HF, VHF, UHF and microwave band digital communication.

Activities on the occasion of World Amateur Radio Day  can be a great opportunity to
spread the word about what the "hams" are doing in the 21st Century.

( http://www.iaru.org/ )