TECHSAT LAUNCH SLATED FOR THIS MONTH

The Israeli satellite carrying amateur radio, Gurwin-TechSat-2, is now on the launching pad in Kazakhstan awaiting a launch window between the 23rd and 24th of this month. A Russian firm is taking care of the launch, using a "Zenith" rocket. Its communications modes will be similar to its predecessor, TechSat-1B, which suffered from an unsuccessful launch a few years back (then another Russian outfit used a converted multi-stage Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile).

Amateurs whose stations are working 9600 Baud FSK with the current crop of Packet-Radio Satellites should have no problem working TechSat. Uplinks are on 145 and 1269 MHz and downlinks on 435 MHz. A telemetry decoding system for use with TechSat should be released soon.

The satellite is only 45 centimetres in height, width and breadth, weights less than 100 Kilograms and is covered with solar panels. It carries three computers, a video camera and sensors developed in the Technion for detecting X and Gamma rays from outer space. This is of course in addition to the Packet Radio gear which is of prime interest to us.

The project began six years ago as a modest students' endeavour. In the course of time a group of scientists joined, new immigrants from the former USSR. Until now, more than eight million dollars has been invested in the project, much by the Israeli Space Agency. The major donor is Joe Gurwin, whose name the satellite bears.

WITH THE BEER-SHEVA GROUP ON THE INLAND VHF-UHF CONTEST

(click here for photographs of the operation)

Last month, during the second day of our Independence-Day celebrations, I took to the hills, to join up with a group of hams the area. The site - under the fire-watch lookout tower at the highest point in the Lahav forest, 15 Kms. north of Beersheva.

(Unfortunately a group of picnicking Egged Bus Co-operative members fenced off the choicest picnic and children's' games area in a nearby grove, a distasteful act in my humble view. Thus there was little there to interest the non-ham family members of our group, and only the hard-core hams stayed there until the contest's conclusion.)

Those present: Yitzhak 4Z7ACF, Marganit 4Z7CDD, Diego 4Z5KE, Reuven 4Z5FI, Daniel 4Z5CF, Shai 4X1TD and yours truly. Shalom 4Z4UT, one of the main movers behind the group effort, had to take care of an urgent matter that morning, and was prevented from participating.

Two stations were set up - one on 145 MHz with a nice long yagi on top of a telescopic aluminium mast, and the other on 432 MHz, with a "death ray" 22 element beam, built by Marganit and Yitzhak especially for the event. The latter antenna, driven only with a 5 watt dual bander handy, really concentrated the RF and did a good accounting of itself to points north.

On two metres, the crew also started off with a handy, albeit into a 50 watt amplifier, but the intermod from a nearby Motorola site wrecked havoc on receive. Taking a mobile rig out of one of the group's cars didn't help much - next year we'll need a good cavity filter for two metres to trash the hash.

After the four hour contest was over, 101 contacts were in the log, 15 of them on UHF. The farthest range QSO was with almost 250 kilometres away - Tidhar 4Z5CA mobiling in the northern Golan heights. Daniel had already started up the barbecue, preparing the burnt offerings. Although I haven't seen the other results, I hazard an educated guess that 4X5BS, the special callsign issued to the group, may well be the first place trophy winner for this year's test. (4X1MK)

HOLYLAND CONTEST IMPRESSIONS FROM 4Z4KX

Mark 4Z4KX, IARC Contest Manager, took a day off work and stayed home for the entire 24 hour contest period, working CW exclusively, and made over a 1000 contacts.

Some stations abroad made close to 400 4X/4Z contacts, when in the last years the overseas winners made just a bit over 200 QSOs. Activity in Israel and from abroad was at an unprecedented high and Mark says that there were at least 180 Israeli callsigns on the air. This includes 50 special calls, the 4X50 pioneers as well as the activation of the Silent Keys' calls.

Band conditions were good - the upswing in the sunspots has begun to manifest itself. All continents were heard here working the contest with stations coming in from as far-flung places as Argentina, Alaska, Australia, Indonesia and Japan. In a few more months all the logs should be in and collated in Mark's computer. At that time we will have the pleasure of announcing the winners.

THE 50th ANNIVERSARY AWARD

During the four months of activity, we were asked about the cost of the awards. We knew only that the basic award would be free. But what about the bronze, silver, gold and platinum awards? There hadn't been a final decision. $10.00 was suggested, but could all the awards cost the same, knowing the platinum award incorporated a real anniversary coin costing the IARC about $5.00 each?

At the last meeting of the IARC council on May 17, several design proposals for the award were shown. The one chosen will be printed in various colors to distinguish the different levels. The platinum award will contain the promised coin. The fee for all the awards, including the platinum which the IARC is subsidizing, will be $10.00 each. We don't celebrate our 50th anniversary every day! All awards, by the way, will be sent in protective cardboard mailing tubes.

The awards will be officially introduced during the Ham-Radio-98 at Friedrichshafen on the Lake of Constance, which takes place from the 25th to the 27th of June. This year, the IARC will have a large booth at the Ham-Radio-98 with the largest ever delegation of IARC council members headed by IARC president 4X6KJ Joseph Obstfeld and chairman 4Z5IS Eli Stern. We intend to carry an extensive report about our booth and the activities throughout the fair in our next issue.

THE HOME FOR THE IARC

Even though the Tel-Aviv major Ronnie Milo promised us in his speech at the IARC's 50th anniversary social event that the city council will give us the old water tower in the center of Tel-Aviv for the permanent Israel Amateur Radio Club headquarters, some other council members torpedoed his decision. Thus we had to drop the entire project.

This still doesn't mean an end to the search for a suitable site for a home of our society. The council of Tel-Aviv's neighboring city, Holon, offered us two alternate sites, better and larger than the one in Tel-Aviv. Some architects have already submitted proposed designs for the sites that might be as large as 600 square meters. So you see our project has been postponed but by no means abandoned. Let us hope that till the turn of the century the zest for a home will become reality.

OUR NEXT ISSUE

As Ahron will be at Friedrichshafen and return to Israel only on the 15th of July, our next issue will be on your desks only in August. It will be a double issue giving full report about the Ham Radio 98, hopefully with some accompanying pictures.

73 de Ron and Ahron