What's in a name - radio societies all over the world

The IARU HF Championship took place this weekend. This is the contest where every country has national stations which exchange the abbreviation of the radio amateur society. Therefore it was an opportunity to reflect on what the names of the national societies mean. Many of the names in the IARU list portray the heritage of a hundred years. It is not so strange then that this may make some of them hard to understand and even a bit old-fashioned.

Starting with the ARRL - American Radio Relay League or NRRL (Norwegian ...) then this is about a network of stations relaying messages in a country with large distances. This is a bit 1920's to me. Looking at the ARRL web page it looks as if the the ARRL agrees and really would like to modernize the name to the National Association for Amateur Radio. The Portuguese may already have modernized it a bit by the use of network instead of relay: "Rede dos Emissores Portugueses"  (Network of Portuguese Transmitters), or perhaps it is just because this is the same word as "relay" in Portuguese?

The radio amateurs are coming! Oslo Mini Maker Faire

"Have you dreamt about sending radio signals via the ionosphere? Or what about studying moon bounced echoes? Visit the radio amateurs and you can learn about analog and digital radio communications, antennas and electronics. There are 5-6000 radio amateurs in Norway, and they probably represent the oldest maker hobby.”

This was the enthusiastic introduction that we were given on the web pages of Oslo Mini Maker Faire. It was arranged at Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology on April 6-7, 2013 in collaboration with the University of Oslo. There were close to 4000 visitors during the weekend and about 100 exhibitors. Our joint stand between the radio amateurs of the Asker/Bærum and Oslo clubs also had a constant stream of visitors.