The origins of the International Amateur Radio Union

Foundations of Amateur Radio

In the early 1920's long distance communication using radio was a growing interest. At the time it was thought that communication that we take for granted today, over long-distance HF, was limited to long wave or extremely low frequencies, the lower the better. With that restriction came massive antennas and high power transmitters, available only to commercial and government stations.

Then radio amateurs let the cat out of the bag by discovering that so-called "short wave" radio could be heard all across the globe. As an aside, today, "short wave" seems quaint, because we've discovered that even shorter waves can be used to communicate, right down to nanometre communication as shown by NASA in its XCOM technology demonstration on the 12th of May, 2019. On a daily basis we use 120 mm and 60 mm waves when we use 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi for example.

As a result of the discovery of short wave radio, a gold-rush emerged. There was a hunger in the community for radio, businesses and communities adopted the new medium, there were radio courses being taught in Universities, church services and other forms of entertainment started filling the airwaves. Comedy, talk shows, music, concerts, serials and dramas spread across the electromagnetic spectrum and radio amateurs who had discovered the phenomenon were running the risk of being pushed aside by commercial interests willing to pay for access.

As I've said before, in many countries at the time, amateur radio was actively discouraged, sometimes it was even illegal.

Before we continue, I should quote some statements made about radio before the gold-rush which at the time was seen as "Telegraphy Without Wires".

In 1865 a Boston Post editorial proclaimed: "Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires and that were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value."

Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, said: "Radio has no future." and went on to say: "Wireless is all very well but I'd rather send a message by a boy on a pony", he also said: "Heavier-than-air machines are impossible." and "X-Rays will prove to be a hoax."

Not all statements aged as badly. The New York Times said in 1899: "All the nations of the earth would be put upon terms of intimacy and men would be stunned by the tremendous volume of news and information that would ceaselessly pour in upon them."

Back to the IARU. Before a business trip to Europe, the board of directors of the ARRL asked their President, Hiram Percy Maxim, to encourage international amateur relations, which on 12 March 1924 resulted in a dinner given, at the Hotel Lutetia in Paris according to Hiram, a "certain dining room" by "the most distinguished radio men of Europe."

Hiram goes on to say that: "This A.R.R.L. President has sat in at a good many very impressive radio meetings in the past, ranging from Maine to California, but he has never sat in at a meeting where there was quite as much thrill as at this meeting in Paris where the amateurs of nine different countries sat down together."

The countries were, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Luxembourg, Canada and the United States. Hiram remarks that "Denmark was represented by a letter in which regret was expressed at the inability to have a representative present and asked that the amateurs of Denmark be counted in." You should dig up a copy of the May 1924 edition of QST to get a sense of occasion where the ARRL president compares the thrill of the "hamfest" to the atmosphere during that dinner and pities those who have never experienced it.

During the meeting it was decided to form an organisation which was going to be called the International Amateur Radio Union. A temporary committee was formed that appointed Hiram Maxim as the chair and Dr. Pierre Corret as secretary to take charge of the details to create a permanent organisation. The final decision was to call for a general Amateur Congress on the Easter Holiday of 1925 where the IARU would be formalised.

On the 14th of April, 1925, 250 radio amateurs from 23 countries met in Paris and over the next four days the details of the new Union were hammered out. Among those details were that the organisation was chiefly for "the coordination and fostering of international two-way amateur communication, that it should be an organisation by individual memberships until strong national societies had been formed in the principal nations and a federation would be feasible, and that its headquarters would be located in the USA."

The constitution was written over a day and night session and by the morning of the 17th of April, every delegate had a copy and then the hard work began, approving the constitution, section by section, by the entire Congress. On the morning of the 18th, elections were held and Hiram U1AW was elected international president, Gerald G2NM, international vice-president, Jean F8GO and Frank Z4AA councillors-at-large and Kenneth U1BHW international secretary-treasurer.

With the election complete, the IARU was officially in business.

The new constitution was published in English, French and Esperanto. Why Esperanto, you ask? In the middle of 1924, the ARRL adopted Esperanto as its official auxiliary language. According to Clinton B. DeSoto, W1CBD, author of a fabulous book "Two Hundred Meters And Down - The Story of Amateur Radio", that might have been the highest official recognition that language ever received.

Credit to Clinton for much of the time line and wording I've shared here. I'll leave you with one final quote from his book.

Clinton W1CBD writes: "One day amateur television is bound to come, however remote though that day may be. It is, indubitably, inevitable that one day amateurs will be able to see each other, as well as talk with each other; and when that day comes the development of amateur radio as a social institution will have taken another great step forward - at least according to present standards. But by then the standards will have changed, and amateurs will have something more to work toward, and the ultimate will still not have arrived. There are always new goals, new horizons. May it fall to amateur radio to march many steps toward the goal of complete knowledge ere its footprints are lost in the sands of time!"

I'm Onno VK6FLAB