Yesterday the European Commission published the new draft for an R&TTE-Directive. You can download it here. An accompanying press release is available here.

If you would like to forward any comments to the Political Relations Committee (PRC) please write to prc_at_iaru-r1.org. We will collect and study all comments and finally draft a comment to forward to the commission.

In cooperation between DARC and the national standards institute of Germany, an article on the calibration of field strength monitors has been published in the well known magazine "Advances in Radio Science". It covers a detailed description of a possible calibration setup including uncertainty calculations. You can download abstract and full article here.

As reported before (see article) the draft EMC Directive contained a new dangerous definition of electromagnetic disturbance in its first draft. IARU R1 PRC group had inserted a proposal for an amendment 31 to change the proposed definition of electromagnetic disturbance back to the current definition. The amendment was carried by a large majority.

Now we have written confirmation, because the Minutes of the IMCO committee have been published. Under Agenda Item 39 you can see that amendment No. 31 was accepted. In the list of Amendments you find our proposal text.

The first reading of the EMC Directive in the European Parliament is scheduled for Nov. 2012.

Members of OK2KDJ and OK2KJT organized a 10 days camp for children from 10 to 16 years. The objective was to attract youth generation to electronics and ham. Members of these radioclubs organize and lead electronic free time hobby groups from October to June already for many years. We have been thinking about extension of those activities to summer holidays. The result was a 10 days Electronic and Ham Radio Camp. 20+ years of experiences at organizing children’s camps and leading electronic groups had been put together. Combining  those two different worlds, an unique project was created. Pictures and video's are on this website.

Preparations started in October 2011 by establishing the core team: Zbynek OK2PIN – the camp leader and technical instructors: Petr OK2AIA and Robin OK2UWQ. The initial task was to create attractive and realistic concept of the camp.

The core activities have been focused on ham radio and building electronic equipment. We wanted to offer more than sitting and soldering and again sitting and operating amateur radio. That’s why we selected a tent camp site next to a forest where participants found various challenges to develop themselves not only in electronics but also at camping abilities and games and competition in the camp and nearby forest, finding new friends and building team spirit. Simply, complex, various and interesting program for 10 – 16 year old children.

Youngsters On The Air which was held in Eeklo, Belgium, from 19 till 26 August was a great success. Teams from 9 different European countries participated during the week in different activities like, ARDF, contesting, presentations about youth and radio amateurism, visit to PI4TUE university of technology Eindhoven, arduino workshops, visit to OT5A Fort lier and much more. On Friday evening the youngsters gave a presentation to the world about the event. The youngsters, most of them are radio amateurs, became friends and are planning new meetings and skeds on HF.                                                                                                                                                          

The Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) of the European Parliament has voted on an amendment to the new version of the EMC Directive of the European Commission. IARU R1 PRC group had inserted a proposal for an amendment 31 to change the proposed definition of electromagnetic disturbance back to the current definition.

The amendment was carried by a large majority.

At the end of last year, after the draft EMC Directive has been published, IARU R1 PRC had intervened at the highest political levels to prevent the new definition. In the worst case, the adoption of the draft with this new definition could have defined a wanted signal to suddenly become a disturbance.

The full discussion of the internal market committee is available as a WMV file (1.8 GB) at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/vod/vodservice/getVODForDownload?vodid=16075&format=wmv&type=2&lang=DE

The championships were held in the beautiful green Lithuanian forest near the town of Siauliai. The small hills made the competition more attractive. There were a lot of visitors who were supporting the teams, which made the already good atmosphere even better. The second day of the competition, 80 m, there were some short rain showers. But this didn’t bring big surprises in the results. Some participants were satisfied with the results, others not. Medals went to Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Lithuania. All participants (104 from 9 countries) had a great time and next year they will have a new chance during EYAC’14 in Czech Republic. The whole competition was perfectly organized by LY2CD and a smart company of assistants – our thanks go to them.