Chair: Dr. Yoji Furuhama (Japan)
Vice-Chair: Prof. Martti Hallikainen (Finland)

The Commission held three Open Business Meetings, respectively, on 19, 21, and 23 August 2002. Copies of the agenda and of the Commission F report to Council for 1999-2002 (published in the September 2002 issue of the Radio Science Bulletin) were made available to attendees. The following items were discussed at the meetings.

Member Committee Representatives had had the opportunity to vote for Vice-Chair by mail, with the candidates being Dr. Gabriel Ajayi (Nigeria), Prof. Piotr Sobieski (Belgium) and Dr. Ed Westwater (USA). As the Council had in its meeting on 18 August decided to expel Nigeria from URSI due to unpaid membership dues, Dr. Ajayi was removed from the list of candidates and Representatives were given the opportunity to vote for the two remaining candidates by marking two points for the first choice and one point for the second choice. Credentials of those voting were checked.

Based on the election outcome, the following names were proposed to the Council, in order of preference:

1. Piotr Sobieski (Belgium)
2. Ed Westwater (USA)

The Commission confirmed its wish that Prof. Martti Hallikainen would become Chairman at the conclusion of the General Assembly. {The Council subsequently confirmed the appointment of Prof. Piotr Sobieski.}

Commission F organised nine scientific oral sessions of invited papers and a large poster session. The Session titles and convenors were as follows:

· F1: Radiometeorology, Rod Olsen (Canada) and J. Pedro Poiares Baptista (The Netherlands)

· F2: Climate parameters in radiowave propagation and their modelling, Terje Tjelta (Norway) and Carlo Riva (Italy)

· F3: Millimetric, Sub-millimetric and optical wave propagation prediction, Chris Gibbins (UK) and Takeshi Manabe (Japan)

· F4: Point to point and point to multipoint propagation, Joel Lemorton (France) and Marlene Sabino Pontes (Brazil)

· F5: Microwave passive remote sensing, Ed Westwater (USA) and Adriano Camps (Spain)

· F6: Microwave active remote sensing, Paolo Pampaloni (Italy) and Jouni Pulliainen (Finland)

· F7: Polarimetric and interferometric techniques in remote sensing, Shane Cloude (UK) and Alberto Moreira (Germany)

· F8: Active microwave remote sensing of ocean, Yoji Furuhama (Japan) and Martti Hallikainen (Finland)

· F9: Passive remote sensing of atmosphere, Haruhisa Simoda (Japan) and Thuy Le Toan (France)

· FP: Wave propagation and remote sensing, Martti Hallikainen (poster session).

Dr. Furuhama asked session convenors to provide a one-paragraph description to Prof. Hallikainen after their sessions for use in the report to be published in Radio Science Bulletin (RSB).

Ten sessions were organized jointly with other Commissions. The joint sessions (the first letter points out the lead Commission) and their convenors were:

· FG: Wave propagation for satellite navigation and mobile services, Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg (F, The Netherlands) and David Rogers (F, Canada)

· BCF: Antennas in mobile communication systems, Makoto Ando (B, Japan) and Gert Frølund Pedersen (C, Denmark)

· CAF: Broadband access systems in wireless communication, H. Ogawa (Japan) and Torbjörn Tanem (Norway)

· CBF: Wave Propagation modeling for mobile communication systems, Werner Wiesbeck (Germany) and Henry Bertoni (USA)

· CF: Adaption to changing radio channel, Robert Bultitude (C, Canada) and Yashio Karasawa (F, Japan)

· CFA: Channel sounding in mobile communication systems, Reiner Thoma (C, Germany) and Simon Saunders (F, UK)

· CFAB: Subsurface remote sensing and its applications, Jürgen Sachs (C, Germany) and David Noon (F, Australia)

· EF: Interference in communication, Jacob Gavan (E, Israel) and David Bacon (F, United Kingdom)

· GF: Transionospheric signal degradation, Reinhart Leitinger (G, Austria) and Manuel Cervera (G, Australia)

· JCF: Interference mitigation in radio science, Michael Kesteven (J, Australia) and Wolfgang-Martin Boerner (F, USA).

Sessions FG and GF were originally planned as Commission F and G regular sessions, respectively. In the Coordinating Committee meeting in April 2001 it was decided to organise them as joint sessions due to mutual interest.

Each session convenor was provided with a copy of the questionnaire prepared by Mr. Martin Hall, GA Scientific Programme Coordinator. Convenors were asked to fill in the questionnaire immediately after their sessions and return them to Mr. Hall with a copy to Prof. Hallikainen.

Commission F sessions were felt to be technically and geographically well balanced, but they could have involved more young scientists. (See 5.1.)

The intended tutorial was replaced at short notice with the following presentation:

Shane Cloude (UK): Recent developments of data processing in polarimetric and interferometric SAR.

The Commission F chapters in the URSI Review of Radio Science 1999-2002 are:

· Adriano Camps (Spain) and Calvin Swift (USA): New techniques in microwave radiometry for Earth remote sensing (Chapter 22)

· Arnold Dekker (Australia) and Robert Bukata (Canada); Remote sensing of inland and coastal waters (Chapter 23)

· David Noon (Australia) and Ram Narayanan (USA): Subsurface remote sensing (Chapter 24)

· Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg (The Netherlands) and David Rogers (Canada): Wave propagation for multimedia satellite services (Chapter 25).

Prof. Hallikainen was to be Commission F Editor for RRS. Dr. Furuhama expressed his thanks to all those having contributed to Commission F presentations and contributions to RRS.

Dr. Furuhama announced that Commission F had an opportunity to nominate a candidate for the special Philips’ Young Scientist Paper Award; he showed the list of eight Commission F Young Scientist Programme awardees. The task was entrusted to Dr. Furuhama and he subsequently proposed Ms. Chieko Ito (Japan; paper no. 181) as the candidate of Commission F to the Philips’ Award Committee.

Dr. Furuhama presented the report of URSI Publications Committee and its proposal to (a) combine the Review of Radio Science (RRS) with the Radio Science Bulletin (RSB) and (b) make it available on the Web (this would not eliminate the paper version). He also presented the reasoning for this proposal, including wider dissemination of RSB, more timely reviews and enhancing the technical content of RSB. Also back issues of RSB could be made available on the Web. Commission F recommended incorporation of RRS into RSB and making RSB available on the Web. Additionally, the new CD-ROM Proceedings and the 100-word abstracts were well received.

Prof. Piotr Sobieski was appointed as Commission F Editor for RSB/RRS. His responsibility is to select review topics and authors for reviews in the areas of interest to Commission F, or to set up a procedure to do so.

{The Council subsequently approved the merger of the Review of Radio Science with the Radio Science Bulletin.} Commission F has to submit 2 to 3 review articles per year on relevant topics to be published in the Radio Science Bulletin.

Dr. Furuhama said that information on URSI resolutions, recommendations and opinions was available on the Web.

An extensive discussion was conducted on Commission F Terms of Reference. It was generally felt that there was a need to modify them. A committee consisting of Dr. Yoji Furuhama, Dr. Thuy Le Toan, and Prof. Richard Moore was established, and they later presented a draft for the new Terms of Reference.

{The Council subsequently confirmed the Terms of Reference in the following form:

"Commission F – Wave Propagation and Remote Sensing (planetary atmospheres, surfaces and subsurfaces)

The Commission encourages:

(a) The study at all frequencies in a non-ionised environment:

(i) wave propagation through planetary neutral atmospheres and surfaces,

(ii) wave interaction with planetary surfaces and subsurfaces including land, ocean and ice,

(iii) characterization of the environment as it affects wave phenomena;

(b) The application of the results of these studies, particularly in the areas of remote sensing and communications;

(c) The appropriate co-operation with other URSI Commissions and other relevant organizations."}

Mr. Hall briefly commented on relations between URSI and other application-oriented organisations, a topic that URSI Council considers to be important. He invited people to attend the open meeting of SCT (Scientific Committee on Telecommunications) to be organised during the General Assembly. (See also 9.)

Commission F was sponsor or co-sponsor of 23 meetings between the 1999 and 2002 URSI General Assemblies. URSI can sponsor meetings in Mode A, B, or C (see URSI Home Page). Mode A meetings can explicitly use the name and logo of URSI, but no financial commitment is involved. URSI grants a fixed, unconditional sum to meetings under Mode B sponsorship, but the support is strictly restricted to cover expenses of Young Scientists, key speakers, or other scientists considered essential to the meeting (but not organisational costs). Awards to such individuals may be appropriate if normal funding from outside URSI is not available. Under sponsorship Mode C URSI grants to a meeting a sum that is to be regarded as a loan. This sum may typically be used to cover preparatory expenses. It may be combined with an additional, fixed unconditional sum to be used in accordance with Mode B. URSI should be involved in sharing any profits from the meeting under Mode C sponsorship.

The main Commission F meeting between URSI General Assemblies was the Commission F Triennial Open Symposium, held this time in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany on February 11-15, 2002 (Mode B). The Commission F Specialist Meeting on Microwave Remote Sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere (Mode B) was held in Boulder, CO, USA on November 5-9, 2001. Climpara’01 was held in Budapest, Hungary on May 28-30, 2001 (Mode B); this was the fifth in a series of meetings which link closely with ITU-R Working Parties 3J and 3M.

Commission F, as usual, co-sponsored with the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society three International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposia (IGARSS), all as Mode A. These are the largest annual remote sensing meetings and continue to draw about 1000 presentations. IGARSS 2000 was held in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA on July 24-28, 2000, IGARSS 2001 was held in Sydney, Australia on July 6-10, 2001, and IGARSS 2002 was held in Toronto, Canada on June 28 - July 2, 2002.

The locations, dates and Modes of the sponsored meetings are shown below. Available meeting Home Pages are indicated, although they may not be accessible in the future. Conference reports in the Radio Science Bulletin (RSB) are also indicated.

· Radio Africa'99: Third Regional Workshop on Radiocommunication in Africa, Gaborone, Botswana, October 25-29,1999 (RSB, September 2000, pp. 6-8)

· AP2000: Millennium Conference on Antennas & Propagation, Davos, Switzerland, April 9-14, 2000 (http://www.estec.esa.nl/AP2000/)

· EUSAR 2000: European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar, Munich, Germany, May 23-25, 2000 (RSB, March 2001, p. 14)

· GPR 2000: Eighth International Conference on Ground Penetrating Radar, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, May 23-26, 2000 (http://www.cssip.uq.edu.au/gpr2000) (RSB, June 2001, p. 19).

· MST9-COST76 Workshop (Ninth International Workshop on Technical and Scientific Aspects of MST Radar combined with the COST-76 Final Profiler Workshop), Toulouse, France, March 13-17, 2000 (156 participants from 27 countries) (http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr/mst/)

· Climpara’01 (Climatic Parameters in Radiowave Propagation Prediction), Budapest, Hungary, May 28 - 30, 2001

· 2001Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference (AP-RASC’01), Tokyo, Japan, August 1-4, 2001 (704 participants from 34 countries/regions) (http://www.kurasc.kyoto-u.ac.jp/ap-rasc/)

· MWRS’01 (URSI Commission F Symposium on Microwave Remote Sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere combined with the Seventh Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry), Boulder, Colorado, USA, November 5-9, 2001 (150 participants from 20 countries) (RSB, March 2002, pp. 57-58)

· Commission F Triennial Open Symposium, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, February 11-15, 2002 (130 participants from 22 countries) 

Mr. Hall and Dr. Furuhama emphasised that the reports of Mode B meetings should be made available for publishing in the Radio Science Bulletin.

The following meetings were preliminarily accepted for Commission F sponsorship. Especially for Mode A, the list is not final. For Mode B, availability of funding limits the number of financially sponsored meetings.

Dr. David Noon volunteered, together with Prof. Dennis Longstaff, to organise the Commission F Triennial Open Symposium in Australia in 2004. Due to a potential conflict with IGARSS’04 (September 2004 in Anchorage, Alaska, USA), it was recommended to hold the meeting in April or May 2004. Volunteers for organising the Commission F Symposium on Microwave Remote Sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere (to be held early 2005) should contact Prof. Hallikainen.

· MMET: International Conference on Mathematical Methods in Electromagnetic Theory, Kiev, Ukraine, September 10-13, 2002 

· The 34^th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Houston, Texas, USA, October 10-19, 2002 (http://www.cosparhq.org)

· Getting the Most out of the Radio Spectrum, London, United Kingdom, October 24-25, 2002 (http://www.iee.org/Events/e24oct02.cfm)

· APMC 2002: 2002 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference, Kyoto, Japan, November 19-22, 2002 (http://www.apmc-mwe.org/apmc2002/apmc2002.html)

· ISAR-3: Third International School on Atmosphere Radar, ICTP Trieste, Italy, November 25 – December 13, 2002 (http://www.ictp.trieste.it)

· ISAP-i02: Intermediate International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation, Yokohama, Japan, November 26-28,2002 

· ISMOT 2003: Ninth International Symposium on Microwave and Optical Technology, Ostrava, Czech Republic, August 11-15, 2003 (http://www.ismot2003.cz).

Mode B:

· Commission F Triennial Open Symposium, Queensland, Australia, April/May 2004

· ClimDiff03, Fortaleza, Brazil, November 17-19, 2003 (http://www.climdiff.com)

· Specialist Meeting on Microwave Remote Sensing, Rome, Italy, February 2004

· Commission F Symposium on Microwave Remote Sensing of the Earth, Oceans, Ice, and Atmosphere, early 2005

· AP-RASC’04: 2004 Asia-Pacific Radio Science Conference, Beijing, China

· MST: Tenth International Workshop on Technical and Scientific Aspects of MST Radar, Lima, Peru, May 2003.

Dr. Furuhama emphasised the importance of the role of Commission F representatives in organising Commission F-sponsored meetings under the three modes of sponsorship: A, B and C. Detailed information and forms for applying for URSI sponsorship and for reporting on the meeting are available on the URSI Home Page (http://www.ursi.org).

Several persons have made proposals for topics of sessions, tutorials and general lectures at the 2005 GA, including Dr. Ed Westwater (USA), Dr. Paolo Pampaloni (Italy), Dr. Alberto Moreira (Germany), Dr. Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg (The Netherlands), Dr. David Noon (Australia) and Prof. Martti Hallikainen (Finland). These proposals will be rationalized and grouped together. Dr. Furuhama requested additional proposals to be sent to Prof. Hallikainen.

Traditionally, Commission F oral sessions have been organised based on invitation only. It was agreed for the future to open the oral sessions for contributed papers in order to have opportunities especially for Young Scientist Programme awardees to present their results. Each convenor will decide, based on his/her invitations, how many contributed papers he/she can accommodate in the session. The new principle should be clearly stated in the Call for Papers.

Sessions will continue to be organised jointly with other Commissions, when appropriate.

No proposals for General Lectures and Commission F Tutorials were made at the Business Meetings, but some have since been received in writing.

Dr. Furuhama mentioned that the term of each Working Group automatically ends at a General Assembly unless renewed by Resolution to Council. It was felt that results from Working Groups should be made known through the Radio Science Bulletin, as well as in reports to the Council.

It was agreed to continue WG GF.1 (Middle atmosphere); however, the new abbreviation is GF. It was also agreed to continue WG GFA1, but with the designation FG and title slightly changed. Commission F is to participate in the work of WG HCDFG (Solar power satellite). The Working Groups and Commission F Co-Chairs are:

· FG: Ionosphere and atmosphere remote sensing using satellite navigation systems

Co-Chairs: Bertram Arbesser-Rastburg (F, The Netherlands) and Catherine Mitchell (G, UK)

· GF: Middle atmosphere

Co-Chairs: J. Röttger (G, Germany) and C.H. Liu (F, China SRS)

· HCDFG: Solar power satellite (SPS)

Co-Chair for Commission F: Steven Reising (USA).

Dr. Furuhama reminded each representative that they should prepare a report to the 2005 General Assembly.

Commission F interests are looked after by Prof. Piotr Sobieski (Belgium).

Commission F to be represented by Dr. Albin Gasiewski (USA). Dr. Furuhama requested him to prepare a report on IUCAF to the Radio Science Bulletin.

Since wave propagation and remote sensing are not among the main topics for COSPAR, it was felt that appointing a Commission F representative is not necessary.

See Section 3.1.

Establishing Commission F Home Page was felt necessary for efficient dissemination of information. Prof. Hallikainen agreed to do it. Any material for the Home Page should be sent to him.

Dr. Furuhama commented on the problems in contacting some Member Committee Representatives and the fact that certain Member Committees did not even have Representatives for Commission F. He said that information on new appointments should be immediately sent to Prof. Hallikainen (and to URSI Headquarters).

Mr. Martin Hall, Chair of SCT (Scientific Committee on Telecommunications) told about recent developments in SCT to broaden its activities. The Committee will continue as essentially a liaison committee to exchange information, but active individuals are needed to advance its specific activities. An open meeting on various objectives and relations with ITU was organised during the 2002 General Assembly. A resolution was put forward to the Council including a change in the Terms of Reference. Commission F expressed its support to the change in the Terms of Reference. {The Council subsequently approved the resolution.} It was agreed that Dr. Jean Isnard (France) should represent Commission F.