Dear ROW Community,

Participation: The ROW meetings have traditionally been by invitation, and this is your personal invitation because of your previous interest/participation in ROW. If you can think of anyone who has not been a ROW participant in the past, and you think they should be involved, then please let me know and I will follow up. For example, the group at Wuhan University in PRC are active and I plan to encourage some representation from there.

Theme: There will be two main themes: Developments of technology and algorithms; and Applications. We would like to promote the applications theme because of the moves for strategic installations of HF radar systems in the US and elsewhere. ROW4 is a opportunity for us to showcase the applications of HF radar technology for both science and security. At the same time we will encourage papers which develop the technology and algorithms. There will be no parallel sessions. There will be an opportunity to visit the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and REEF HQ, with its 'live' aquarium.

Extension: On Saturday 24 April there will be an opportunity for a group booking on a day-trip to the Great Barrier Reef for diving, snorkelling, swimming and/or glass-bottom-boating on one of the reefs of the GBR. This will be an option which you will need to pay for separately. The cost will be about $AUD120 for the day and diving gear is around $60 (Ozzie Dollars). You need to make this decision early because it is a full day trip (with no short options) and needs to be built in to your itinerary.

US HF Community: We have thought long and hard about the overlap with the call within the US to make strategic plans for HF radar installations for security applications. A meeting will be held in St Petersburg, Florida for that group. On the balance we figured that ROW4 should go ahead on 21--23 April to retain the continuity of that International series, and to allow for some consolidation of the US HF Workshop, if that is required and appropriate. There is room for that in ROW4, and non-US people will be interested to hear about the outcomes.

Access: Airline access to Townsville is through Cairns (daily flights from Asian ports; access from the US via GUAM); or through Sydney or Brisbane. In either case there is a Domestic leg to Townsville. Ground transport from the Townsville airport to Magnetic Island will be arranged at the Townsville end and you do not have to organise that with your travel agent.

Publications: ROW1 produced about 24 papers in a well-produced printed report. There is a possibility of inviting papers for a special issue of a journal. There is the option of having no proceedings at all. Perhaps you would like to give your opinion on this. We have not decided yet which option we should go for in 2004. To a large extent this is determined by our sponsorship budget.

Response: Please indicate by the 31 October 2003 whether you are likely to attend ROW4 in Townsville, Australia; and whether your presentation should be in the Development or Applications sessions. This is not a commitment but an indication for our planning. We will ask for a commitment by 31 January 2004.

Contact Mal Heron and please use 'ROW4' in the subject line (to avoid ending up in the spam bin)