How to Contribute Content

What is the hamradio​.org website for?

Hamradio​.org is an International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) website that promotes and offers content targeted to both radio amateurs and the general public. The main purpose of the website is to provide information about any amateur radio-related or technical topic and to attract people to amateur radio.

Everyone is welcome to contribute content to the website. The website content is contributed by people knowledgeable in the areas of interest covered by this site. Content authors are free to choose any topic they have knowledge of and wish to create content about. As an alternative, hamradio​.org accepts suggestions of content on other websites to be included on the hamradio​.org website.

How to contribute

There are two ways you can contribute new content to the website:

By creating the content yourself: Once you have an idea of the content you would like to contribute, please contact the editorial coordinator to propose new content. You should include the title and the type of the contribution (e.g. an article, a video or a podcast) in your proposal. Once your content proposal is accepted, you can start working on your contribution and, when you have finished working on the content, you can send it to the editorial coordinator.

By providing a suggestion of content created by someone else: The suggested content should be something you believe would be of value for the website and that would benefit visitors of the hamradio​.org website. Please send your suggestion to both the editorial coordinator and to the original author of the content so that they can agree on whether the content can be published on this website.

The editorial coordinators may also ask for contributions directly from authors that are recognized experts on their respective fields.

Content authorship

All published articles on the website will always indicate the original author of the content. The website provides every author a profile page, which may include the author biography, a photo, contact information and links to personal websites. The profile page also lists all articles contributed by the author.

Initially, your profile page will show only your name, your amateur radio call sign (if you have one) and a list of articles you have contributed. Please contact the editorial coordinator to update your profile page with additional information.

Please note that if your contribution includes content from other authors, you will need to obtain a written permission to use their content as a part of your contribution.

Republished content (from other websites or sources)

Some content may originate from sources, such as other websites, where the content has already been published by another author. It is required to obtain a written permission from the original author to use such content on the hamradio​.org website. Republished content on hamradio​.org will clearly indicate its author and origin, including a link to the original content, if available. When submitting content to be republished on hamradio​.org, please include the written permission for republishing and the link to the original content.

It is also possible to contribute by submitting a brief summary of some content, which contains a short summary describing the content, a suitable image and a link to the original content. A written permission from the author is not required in this case, but it is still recommended. Please note that a permission is required also for republishing images, such as photos that accompany articles.

Why contribute?

Radio amateurs traditionally share their knowledge and experience openly, for free, to help others learn new skills and discover new technology. The hamradio​.org website follows this principle with its policies for contributions.

Publishing content on hamradio​.org is a great opportunity for authors to promote themselves and their expertise on a particular topic. It is also a way to find and to collaborate with people interested in the same topic.

Technical details on preparing your contribution

You should prepare the content you plan to contribute either as plain-text files (with no formatting) or alternatively as OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Microsoft Word or PDF files if the article requires using graphical content that cannot be presented using plain text or images, such as formulas or tables. Please always include attachments, such as photographs, drawings, schematics or other data as separate files – do not embed them inside text documents. 

Note that currently hamradio​.org accepts content produced in the English language only. There is a plan to make hamradio​.org a multi-lingual website, so translations of content are accepted as they may be published later in the future.

Please follow the steps below to prepare your content:

  • Create a new folder on your computer named by the author name and the article title.
    Example: jane-smith-how-does-a-dipole-antenna-actually-work
  • Create a document file in that folder with the same name as the folder. The accepted file formats are: plain-text file (.txt), OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer (.odt), Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF (.pdf).
    Example: jane-smith-how-does-a-dipole-antenna-actually-work.docx (for a Word file)
  • Create additional text files for each translation with the language name in English appended to the file name.
    Example: jane-smith-how-does-a-dipole-antenna-actually-work-german.docx (for a Word file)
  • Add any other files (such as images or videos) in the same folder. Please remember to add tags in the text content to reference any images, videos or other files.

The allowed characters in file and folder names are the Latin alphabet (a‑z), numbers, hyphen and underscore. Use underscore or hyphen instead of space character. Use only lower case characters. Do not use spaces or any special characters in the file or folder names.

Create a ZIP archive file of the folder and send it to the editorial coordinator according to instructions. The subject of the message should start with prefix “Article: ” followed by the author name and the title of the content/article.

Guidelines on text article contributions

Please follow the article metadata and formatting guidelines below when providing text articles contributions.

Article metadata

Please include the following information at the beginning of each article:

  • Title: [Article title]
  • Author: [Your full name, including your amateur radio call sign if you have one]
  • Author email: [Your personal email address. The address will not be shown in public. It is used by the editorial coordinator to create your profile page on the website and to contact you if needed.]
  • Excerpt: [1–2 sentences of text summarizing the article. If an excerpt is not provided, the first few paragraphs of the article will used as the excerpt instead.]
  • Target groups: [List one or more target groups the article belongs to: Everyone, Non-Tech, Tech, Media, Hams, Makers]

Write text article text below the metadata.

Article text formatting

Please follow the formatting rules below for the article content:

  • All text should be stored using the UTF‑8 encoding.
  • Provide the article in one of the accepted formats: plain-text file (.txt), OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer (.odt), Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF (.pdf). Do not embed any graphics or other files in the documents, but provide them as separate files instead.
  • Paragraphs should be separated by single empty line. No forced line or word-wrapping within paragraphs should be applied.
  • Use tabs for indentation.
  • To insert an image at a specific place in the article, use a tag #image:<image_file_name>#. Please remember to include the image file with the article text.
  • To insert a link to a downloadable file in the article, use a tag #file:<file_name>#. Please remember to include the file with the article text.
  • To insert a link to a web page in the article, use a tag #url:<the_full_url>#.
  • If any other special formatting is necessary, please provide an additional PDF file with the formatted content that could help the editor to recreate the formatting.

After submitting a contribution

The hamradio​.org editorial coordinator will consider submitted contributions and will decide whether the contribution should be accepted to be published on the website. The editorial coordinator may also suggest changes to the content. Categorization and tagging of the content are also done by the editorial coordinator.

If you are a first-time contributor, an author account will be created for you and all your future contributions will be linked to the account.

Comments

We typically allow comments on all published articles. If you specifically do not want to allow any comment on your article, please let us know.