© DK 9 VB / 09/01   Translation  G 3 FIB
 
 

Beginnings
The railway radio amateurs of Europe have maintained regular contacts for more than 40 years. Ever since the beginning, in the sixties,
it has been apparent that there was an inclination to gather together internationally. The first international meeting took place on
the 18th of September 1960 in Geneva, then followed the meetings of 1962 in Bischheim (France) and of 1963 in Paris.
The FIRAC was founded during the fourth international meeting in Hamburg on 20th and 21st of Sep-tember 1964
at which there were 183 OM’s from 7 countries participating. In the same year, the first FIRAC call book appeared,
containing members from 10 countries.

Uniting
The FIRAC is affiliated to the „Fédération internationale des sociétés artistiques et intellectuelles de cheminots (FISAIC)“,
in English, the „International Culture and Leisure time Association for Railway People”.

Aims and Purposes of FIRAC
FIRAC aims to:
 achieve the main objective of radio amateurs
                   Friendship without Frontiers
 promote and support the cooperation of railway radio amateurs of all countries and international organisations
 encourage and support the creation of  national groups of railway radio amateurs in all countries
 help to build a partnership between the different groups an national associations
 prepare, organise and help to prepare and organise the international meeting and events
 (Con-gresses, but also regional meetings such as the Benelux or ‘theme’ meetings)
 prepare and conduct international contests, establish and publish the rules of these contests and promote them
 set up international nets (networks) for the whole World and appoint responsible persons
 foster and expand the association with new members
 coordinate and circulate technical activities of national groups
 promote internal and external publicity by appointing a special committee member to prog-ress/announce a calendar of events
 publish/update a FIRAC handbook of information for railway radio amateurs
 publish a list of callsigns of railway radio amateurs.

FIRAC does not follow any political, union or denominational purpose and discussions on these sub-jects or
their evocation are not wanted.
It is recommended that members stay within their national society, as in the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union).

Organisation
The officers of FIRAC are:

 President
 Vice President
 Secretary
 Treasurer
 Public Relations Officer

Additional members can be appointed for particular tasks.
The officers are chosen every year by the FIRAC Congress.
The voters are the Presidents of the national groups and the representative of the individual (miscella-neous) members, with one vote each.

Members
Members can be
 national associations of railway radio amateurs
 individual members (MC) in countries where there is no national association of railway radio ama-teurs at the decision of person
who is responsible for MC members.
This means that in countries where there exists a national association (in Gt. Britain it is the BRARS
( British Railways Amateur Radio Society), membership of that association means automatic member-ship of FIRAC.
The secretary of FIRAC or another officer can give the address of the national associations local or regional group(s).

Subscriptions
The amount of the subscription is fixed for the next year in the course of the annual congress. The sub-scription per member in a national
organisation includes the FIRAC subscription. Individual members (MC) pay their subscription by credit transfer to the
FIRAC account managed by the Treasurer (see Appendix).

Rights and Duties
These are governed by the rules of the national associations.
All members can enjoy the benefits of FIRAC and participate in all the official events of FIRAC.
Members should favour and support the aims of FIRAC.

Regular activity

Nets (networks)
Many European countries and overseas also, operate radio nets with the motto

                  „Friendship without Frontiers“.

A list of nets can be obtained. (see Appendix)

Congress
The tradition of the FIRAC annual congress has been maintained so far . ( see Appendix).

Diplomas
FIRAC issues the diploma   „FIRAC-Award“
to radio amateurs and short wave listeners for radio contacts with members in different classes
(see ap-pendix for address of the Diploma Manager).
Most of the national groups issue their own diplomas
French group........................... “Worked French FIRAC“
Swedish group........................ ”The SvJF Award“
Finnish group.......................... “The VRC - 3 Award“
German group......................... “EFA-DL-Diplom“
Hungarian group.................... “The Hungarian Railway Award“
Austrian group........................ “FIRAC-OE-Diplom“
Belgian group.......................... “The BRARC Award“
The FIRAC secretary can supply the addresses of the diploma managers.

Contests
Every year FIRAC organises the contests, the rules in the Appendix.
 

FIRAC Manual
This manual, intended only for FIRAC members, contains
 the organisational chart of FIRAC
 the internal rules and regulations of FIRAC
 the list of national and international nets
 the rules of the international contests
 the rules of the FIRAC Award and the national diplomas
 various other information.

Appendix (Present time information about FIRAC)

Rules and regulations
Interior Rules and regulations.
These are the rules dated 31/10/1998, as being valid.

Organisation:
Officers of FIRAC for 2008/2009 are:

President:                         Gheorghe ZAHARIE, YO 6 HAY
                                          Str. Teuis nr. 3 bl. 1 sc. B  R-2200-BRASOV                       

 Contest-Manager:          Mario Vandervelde, ON 4 KV
                                         3, Rankhove    B-1540 HERNE            
National groups:
At present approximate   1775 (01.10.2009)  railway radio amateurs are FIRAC members. In European countries exist 20 national groups.

ON,  Belgium,                Z3, Macedonia,
OZ,  Denmark,               SP, Poland
D,    Germany,                LA, Norway,
OH, Finland,                  OE,  Austria,
F,    France,                   YO, Rumania,
G, Gt. Britain,                SM, Sweden,
I, Italy,                          HB Switzerland,
YU, Yugoslavia,            OK/OM,Czech. Republic/Slovakia and
LX, Luxembourg,           HA, Hungary.
LZ, Bulgaria,                  S5, Slovenia.

Besides in other European countries where there is no national association and in many oversea countries
FIRAC has individual members(MC).

FIRAC Congresses
In recent years FIRAC members have had 5 days reunions:
 1993: Budapest/Hungary                 1
 1994: Bernkastel-Kues/Germany    
 1995: Narvic/Norway                    
 1996: Brasov/Rumania                    
 1997: Sevrier/France                                                      
 1998: Sorrent/Italy                                                        
 1999: Prag/Czech. Republic
 2000: Brig/Switzerland
 2001: Blackpool/England
 2002: Sopron, Hungarya
 2003: St. Urban, Austria
 2004: Varna, Bulgeria
 2005: Sylt, Germany
 2006: Ljublijana, Slovenia
 2007: Hajduszoboszlo, Hungaria
 2008  Grado, Italy
 2009   Novy Smokovec

The congress in 2010 will take place in Nový Smokovec,Slovak Rep, from 24. - 28.  September

Nets (networks)
A list of nets can be obtained from: 
Geoff. Sims, G 4 GNQ, 85 Surrey St., GLOSSOP,
Derbyshire. SK13 7AJ, England

Contests
H. F. Bands
.The contest will be held for:Class 0 : on the last full weekend in October;
It starts on the Saturday at 11-oo GMT and lasts until 11-oo GMT Sunday. At the pres-ent time,
only FIRAC members can participate.
Class 1 (SSB) contest takes place during the second weekend in November. It starts on the Saturday at 11-oo
GMT and lasts until 11-oo GMT on Sunday. At the present time, only FIRAC members can participate.

VHF contest is held on the third Saturday in June in the 2 m band (144.150/144.400 MHz)
and is not restricted to FIRAC members only but is open to all radio amateurs.

Call sign List
One can obtain this list by sending one international reply coupon (IRC) to:
DK 5 MHQ, Ludwig TILL.
or download in the FIRAC Homepage

Subscriptions
Subscriptions to be send to FIRAC account number: 

IBAN BE11 0001 8111 3548 (International Bank Account Number)
BPOTBEB1 (Bank Identification Code)
Account Name:

FIRAC Internet site