WIA Centenary celebrations

The WIA Centenary Committee met last Tuesday to review the celebration to date and identify further actions needed in the coming six months.

All aspects were discussed including the special callsign VK100WIA, its on-line logging, the receipt and issuing of QSL cards and the very first VK and DX claims for the WIA Centenary Award having been received.

A copy of this month's JARL news was produced at the meeting. It's the latest overseas magazine to report on the WIA's Centenary and the WIA Centenary Award.

Japanese radio amateurs have featured heavily among the DX stations making contact with VK100WIA.

The WIA National Field Day to be held on Sunday the 23rd of October is a major promotional opportunity for amateur radio.

In particular, the Committee considered the type of support that can be provided to participating clubs to maximise the public relations benefit of this event.

Reports were received on the promotion of the Centenary through the news media and also the webmaster tabled statistics that showed a staggering level of visits to the WIA website reading the WIA Centenary section.

The committee heard that there appears to be increased levels of inquiry from prospective radio amateurs.

The on-line requests for information on the WIA website in May and June are higher than the same time last year.

The committee also noted the comments of clubs that have already activated the VK100WIA callsign resulting in them receiving new inquiries from people wanting to know more about amateur radio.

Wireless Institute of Australia