ARCIA is delighted with the response to our events so far this year. With a great turnout in Sydney, members, partners and the wider community enjoyed a great daytime conference program, followed by the evening networking dinner. We have high hopes for Brisbane on 27 July to round out our conferences before the main events in Melbourne over 17–19 October.

The level of engagement seen from all sectors has been terrific; a real sign that the market is thriving, COVID is finally behind us and of course that the excellent work from the CEO and his event team is paying off for all stakeholders.

This all bodes well for the annual Comms Connect and ARCIA Gala Dinner in Melbourne, so make sure you keep an eye on the ARCIA website for these major events — https://arcia.org.au/events/. We suspect that October will be big, as the industry really gets back into gear and comes together to make the most of the collective opportunity presented.

One item that ARCIA is reworking in time for this year’s Gala Dinner is the award categories. There are so many people, companies and projects happening across the country that the committee would like to recognise and so is broadening the scope of the awards. In particular, we wanted to highlight local manufacturing; it’s often assumed that everything comes from overseas, when in fact there are a number of local manufacturers. Governments seek to encourage local manufacturing and there are many companies taking up this challenge, so the association thinks it high time we celebrate them.

With this in mind, watch out for the updated awards page on our website, take a fresh look and nominate those you feel deserve the recognition for what they do. We will also be looking to accent innovation as one of the award evaluation criteria, as we know many in our sector, from large organisations to small, deliver first-class innovation, which is vitally important.

The training program is in progress, with several courses now available online, including a Microwave Engineering Masterclass, Introduction to Radio Communications and Introduction to Digital LMR standards. There are more in the pipeline, with next up likely focusing on LTE/5G and Interference Mitigation. We suggest that you get in touch with us to let us know what you need for your teams, as your feedback is incredibly important. We will also survey members and those signed up to receive information from ARCIA, so please make sure your membership is up-to-date or register to receive our newsletters.

The association has also been active with the ACMA working on 4.9 GHz for public safety, the WBB mid-band spectrum, and we also received a request to enquire about radio re-broadcasting licences in remote area and mine sites.

Finally, we recommend that all involved with the critical communications community read the reports on Public Safety Mobile Broadband. It is critical that Australia gets this right and we broadly support the efforts by all levels of government to get the program up and running. There is so much to learn from other countries and the complex standards process. Communities expect our public safety agencies to have the necessary tools in place to cope with all but the 1-in-100-year events and communications technologies are a critical tool for situational awareness. The review and the government response are available at https://nema.gov.au/Public-Safety-Mobile-Broadband — ARCIA recommends that people read it and understand the situation.