The Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union (IARU) Region 3 suc­cess­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed the inter­ests of the ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vices at the 3rd Meet­ing of the APT Con­fer­ence Prepara­to­ry Group for WRC-27 (APG27‑3), held in Sap­poro, Japan, from 27 to 31 July 2026.

The meet­ing was an impor­tant step in the Asia-Pacif­ic region’s prepa­ra­tions for the 2027 World Radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion Con­fer­ence (WRC-27), bring­ing togeth­er more than 800 par­tic­i­pants, with over 500 attend­ing in per­son, rep­re­sent­ing APT Mem­bers, Asso­ciate and Affil­i­ate Mem­bers, and inter­na­tion­al organisations.

The IARU Region 3 was rep­re­sent­ed by:
• Wis­nu Wid­ja­ja, YBØAZ, Pres­i­dent
• John­ny Siu, VR2XMC, Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee Mem­ber
• Mohd. Aris bin Bernawi, 9M2IR, Vice Pres­i­dent (as part of the Malaysian admin­is­tra­tion)
• Sion Chow Qi Chao, 9M2CQC, VHF and Band Plan Com­mit­tee Chair (as part of the Malaysian admin­is­tra­tion)
• Ken Yamamo­to, JA1CJP, Sec­re­tary (as part of the Japan admin­is­tra­tion)
• Dr. Wahyu­di Has­bi, YB1PRY, for­mer Chair­man of the Direc­tors of IARU Region 3, served as Chair of Work­ing Par­ty 4 at the meet­ing, con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the coor­di­na­tion of views on sci­ence issues.

Some oth­er radio ama­teurs, includ­ing Dale Hugh­es, VK1DSH, par­tic­i­pat­ing online, Yoshia Miyadera, JL1OKJ (JRC Japan), and Frank Ernst, DH1SE (BOSCH), attend­ed as part of the inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tion and affil­i­ate members.

Rep­re­sent­ing Ama­teur Radio in the WRC-27 Prepara­to­ry Process

IARU Region 3 sub­mit­ted Infor­ma­tion Doc­u­ment APG27‑3/INF-22, pre­sent­ing IARU’s pre­lim­i­nary views on WRC-27 agen­da items of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to the ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite services.

The IARU del­e­ga­tion active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in Work­ing Par­ties, Draft­ing Groups, and ple­nary dis­cus­sions, work­ing with admin­is­tra­tions and oth­er par­tic­i­pants to ensure that ama­teur radio inter­ests were tak­en into con­sid­er­a­tion through­out the prepara­to­ry process.

The dis­cus­sions cov­ered five WRC-27 agen­da items of par­tic­u­lar rel­e­vance to ama­teur radio:

* Agen­da Item 1.8 – pos­si­ble addi­tion­al radi­olo­ca­tion allo­ca­tions in the 231.5–275 GHz range and relat­ed iden­ti­fi­ca­tions up to 700 GHz;
* Agen­da Item 1.13 – direct con­nec­tiv­i­ty between Mobile-Satel­lite Ser­vice and IMT user equip­ment;
* Agen­da Item 1.15 – future com­mu­ni­ca­tions on the lunar sur­face and between lunar orbit and the lunar sur­face;
* Agen­da Item 1.17 – reg­u­la­to­ry pro­vi­sions for receive-only space weath­er sen­sors; and
* Agen­da Item 10 – future WRC agen­da items.

Pro­tect­ing the Future of Ama­teur Radio

A major focus of IARU Region 3’s par­tic­i­pa­tion was to ensure that new or mod­i­fied spec­trum arrange­ments do not adverse­ly affect exist­ing ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vices or con­strain their future development.

The APG27‑3 dis­cus­sions pro­duced pos­i­tive out­comes across the agen­da items rel­e­vant to ama­teur radio. The APT Pre­lim­i­nary Views gen­er­al­ly reflect­ed the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing exist­ing ser­vices and ensur­ing that appro­pri­ate shar­ing and com­pat­i­bil­i­ty stud­ies are under­tak­en before intro­duc­ing new uses of spectrum.

Look­ing Toward the Moon

Agen­da Item 1.15 was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant in view of the grow­ing inter­na­tion­al inter­est in lunar exploration.

IARU advo­cat­ed that any new or mod­i­fied Space Research Ser­vice allo­ca­tions for com­mu­ni­ca­tions on the lunar sur­face and between lunar orbit and the lunar sur­face should not degrade the cur­rent oper­a­tion or future devel­op­ment of ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite services.

The APT Pre­lim­i­nary Views recog­nised the grow­ing glob­al inter­est in lunar explo­ration and the need for reli­able com­mu­ni­ca­tions between lunar sur­face sys­tems and lunar orbit­ing plat­forms. APT Mem­bers sup­port­ed fur­ther stud­ies while empha­sis­ing the pro­tec­tion of exist­ing radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices, the Shield­ed Zone of the Moon, and Radio Astronomy.

The dis­cus­sions also under­line the impor­tance of con­tin­ued con­sid­er­a­tion of the future role that ama­teur radio may play in lunar com­mu­ni­ca­tions as space explo­ration develops.

Pos­i­tive Out­comes for Ama­teur Radio

The out­come of APG27‑3 demon­strat­ed strong align­ment between the APT Pre­lim­i­nary Views and IARU’s objectives.

In par­tic­u­lar, the meet­ing recog­nised the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing exist­ing ama­teur allo­ca­tions, ensur­ing that new ser­vices do not impose unnec­es­sary con­straints on incum­bent ser­vices, and main­tain­ing appro­pri­ate pro­tec­tion from poten­tial inter­fer­ence from new or adja­cent services.

IARU Region 3’s active par­tic­i­pa­tion in the APG process demon­strates the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a strong ama­teur radio pres­ence in region­al and inter­na­tion­al spec­trum discussions.

The Work Con­tin­ues Toward WRC-27

The con­clu­sion of APG27‑3 marks anoth­er impor­tant mile­stone, but the work toward WRC-27 continues.

IARU Region 3 will main­tain its engage­ment in rel­e­vant ITU‑R study groups and con­tin­ue coor­di­nat­ing with its Mem­ber Soci­eties to devel­op and refine region­al posi­tions in prepa­ra­tion for the remain­ing APG meetings.

The next APG27 meet­ing, APG27‑4, is sched­uled for 25–30 Jan­u­ary 2027 in Thai­land, fol­lowed by APG27‑5, sched­uled for 4–11 August 2027 in the Repub­lic of Korea.

Con­tin­ued engage­ment and tech­ni­cal con­tri­bu­tions from the ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ty will be essen­tial as the Asia-Pacif­ic region moves toward the final prepa­ra­tions for WRC-27.

IARU Region 3 remains com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that the voice of ama­teur radio is heard and that the inter­ests of the ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vices are effec­tive­ly rep­re­sent­ed — today and for the future.