HAGAL INTERNATIONAL
FEBRUARY 1997 - Vol.11 No.2

ISRAEL HAM NEWS
by
Ahron Kirschner 4X1AT and Ron Gang 4X1MK


Items of this month:

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(The material herein may freely be reproduced by all Amateur Radio publications on the condition that we are credited as the source of the information. We would appreciate receiving a copy of your publication quoting us.)

THE POSITIVE BALANCE

In our last issue we gave the highs and the lows of activity during 1996, last year. But there were also others who did their best for the IARC.

Let's thank the QSL managers. 4X6VT Corrine Yehuda of Haifa and 4X6OM Kuti Stessel (with family). Both of them did a marvelous job, VT in the outgoing bureau and OM with the incoming QSLs. Both of them spent many voluntary hours for the benefit our hams.

A tip of the hat to 4X6LM Shlomo Mussali, the editor of the Hebrew HaGAL. He too spent many hours to get out the 6 bimonthly issues. We always have to stress that through the years, since 1948, we have had a lot of editors for the magazine but Shlomo has managed to bring a high level of professionalism to the magazine.

One who is always helping out, not making any waves, is 4X1WA David Shmueli. He is a professional in the field of communications equipment. He too spends a lot of his `spare time' with the repeater gang, in keeping the repeaters going and getting them up to perfection.

We shouldn't forget 4Z4KX Mark Stern for being our Award Manager and in addition taking care of our new ham radio immigrants, getting them on the air with equipment specially collected for them.

Shalom Beitscher 4Z4UT does excellent work as the Contest Manager doing all the tremendous work for co-ordinating the Holyland Contest. A very labour intensive job.

One man, who is also running a big show, is Malik Webman 4X4JU with the `Holyland Award Scheme'. Most Saturdays afternoons he is out in his car with equipment, driving around Israel, to help getting for the amateurs all around the globe the `squares' for the so much sought-after award. He has quite a lot of helpers also travel around avtivating the `squares'. The `Holyland Award' has become so popular that keeping the QSO logs of the pile-up contacts is a unending job. Here we have mentioned only a few of our fellow IARC members who donate freely their time and money(!) for us.

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4X1SK APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS

Israel Ham News congratulates Daniel Rosenne 4X1SK on his appointment to the highest post in the Israel Ministry of Communications. Dani, a veteran ham, was first licenced in the mid 60's as 4X4NSK, and has always been at the technological cutting-edge in our hobby. He was one of the pioneers of Packet Radio in Israel, and wrote a detailed series of articles on the subject in HaGAL Magazine over a decade ago. His past appointents include vice-directorship of Tadiran Electronic Industries, Bezek (the Israeli telecommunications company), and in the past two years he set up and managed Bezek International.

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TECHSAT II IS ALIVE AND WELL

The Israeli Amateur Radio Satellite TECHSAT II is coming along well on the way to its expected launch later this year in Russia. Last year TECHSAT I died a premature death on its aborted launch in Russia. This new launch will be with a different outfit, and is to put quite a few birds into space, including some big-money satellites. Hopefully, this will be more serious than the previous one, and we'll have an Israeli "hamsat" to add pride to all the 4X and 4Z amateurs. Further details on the TECHSAT web site: http://www.technion.ac.il/~asronen/techsat/

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OOPS

In our last newsletter we goofed giving incorrect wrong callsigns. (On the repeaters, local custon is to abbreviate the callsigns, just giving the 2 letter suffix, sometimes giving cause to confusion.) Both calls should be 4X6ZH and 4X1OM. His call was also in our item `Balance' in the last issue. The mistake was not repeated when sending the article to the Hebrew `HaGAL' and to IARC pages on the Internet- http://ayalon.eng.tau.ac.il/~oded/iarc)

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LOCAL QRM by Shlomo Mussali 4X6LM

(written for the current HaGAL Magazine and herein freely translated from the Hebrew, our additions and explanations in square brackets).


** LOOKING FOR AMATEUR RADIO INSTRUCTORS in the primary schools in Tel- Aviv. In the last while there's been an awakening of all places in the primary schools that are looking to introduce amateur radio into schools.
** NO STUDENTS in the amateur radio empire of 4X4HQ [the Tel-Aviv Youth Centre which for decades has been turning out classes of new hams -ed], and thus a new course was not opened there.
** RECEIVING MONEY - At long last we're beginning to feel the fruits of the labour of Eli Stern 4Z5IS that took upon himself the task. Now it is asked of us to know how we intend to spend it. [4Z5IS is an attourney who worked hard voluntarily to turn the IARC into an official non-profit organisation, and thus receive donations of monies willed to the State. See previous issues of this newsletter. -ed]
** ALSO MOTOROLA is looking for pupils and instructors. Nobody has been coming to their home club 4Z4HX, except for one person who comes to practice alone and earn his licence.
** RETURNING PAST GLORIES - The "Old Timers" are trying renew their old custom of monthly meetings.
** MEMBERSHIP FEES should be paid and quickly. Write a cheque. Sign it and don't forget to write your callsign on it. In return you receive a beautiful new membership card.
** THE ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP ASSEMBLY will take place! There's no choice. February 97. Invitations will be sent by the IARC secretary.
** DIDN'T TAKE A FREE RIDE. This year too the members and the various committees didn't take a free ride on the January issue of HAGAL. Once again we will have to hear their oral reports at the General Assembly and won't be able to read them in advance.
** THE TEL-AVIV REPEATER has been renovated with different receivers using the same PL tone. The principle is that the best recived signal is the one which is relayed by the repeater without dividing the different regions into different CTCSS tones [for accessing the local receiver].
** WENT TO OMAN -- Arieh Sourkis 4X6UO was personally invited to visit the Emirate of Oman and operated the club station A41RS. Arieh made tens of contacts with Israeli amateurs and will return undoubtedly with photos and impressions which he will certainly share with our readers.
** STRIKING -- The members of the [IARC] Packet Committee went on strike. With a dramatic declaration, Tidhar 4Z5CA announced the cessation of activities of the BBS's in the country as a result of non-co-operation from the chairman of the IARC executive. If there is indeed no co- operation then where did all the tens of thousands of shekels go to, that were authorized for this activity [Packet]. And when there was co- operation why did the Tel-Aviv BBS not work for more than a month? And if the people who are in the executive don't understand Packet then why don't those who do understand Packet join the executive?
** SERIOUSLY -- If there won't be Packet, so what does the IARC give its members? 1. Repeaters 2. Outgoing QSL Bureau 3. Incoming QSL Bureau 4. Membership Services 5. HaGAL Magazine. And all of this for 200 shekels a year [$60]. Multiply this by 600 dues-paying members (even less) and say what should be expected. So what do we do? 1. Raise membership dues to 350 shekels (how many of you are willing?). 2. Shut-down the repeaters. 3. Charge for each outgoing QSL. 4. Publish one magazine each half year [instead of every 2 months as is now].

73 de Ron and Ahron

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Note to Internet Readers:

If you have any comments, feedback, or just want to let us know that you've been reading our newsletter, we'd love to hear from you.

E-Mail addresses:

rongang@inter.net.il
4x1mk@4z4aaa.ampr.org

(The first address is generally the most reliable as long as I continue to pay the server, the second works through the 4X Packet-Internet Gateway, which is back up and running at this time, but is not guaranteed as 100% reliable, due to the fallabilty of the national Packet system.)

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This page was edited by Yossi Sharon 4X1BQ, Nov 1996.

Thanks to Ron Gang 4X1MK who helped with this page.