JY1 -A GREAT LOSS TO ALL OF US

Nothing has helped. All the efforts of the doctors and all our prayers were in vain. This great man, our special friend, King Hussein of Jordan, passed away and we all are in mourning. We all simply can't believe that he has really died.

From the point of view of the Israeli radio amateurs, the King's involvement brought about the greatest success story they ever achieved. It was the joint activity of Israeli and Jordanian hams from the top of the Mount Moses (Har Nevo) with the special calls of JY4X and JY4Z. Without the personal involvement of JY1 the event couldn't have taken place at all. The videos filmed on location at the time show clearly the participation of the late King on location during this operation.

We all will miss the very dominant voice of JY1 on the bands. His excellent and polite way of handling of the communication, sometimes explaining with patience to his QSO partner his special call of only JY1. As you will have noted we only mention in this obituary the King's activities as viewed by the Israeli Radio Amateurs.

There will be many other obituaries about the King and his great life story. We hams, not getting involved politics, neither on the air nor on these pages of the HaGal International, comment on this tragic event for all of us solely from the viewpoint of our hobby. We will remember His Royal Highness forever, and express our condolences to all the members of the Royal Jordanian Amateur Radio Club.

Will there be ever another ham of the statue of JY1?

THE FINAL RESULTS OF THE 4X50 ACTIVITY

Now the great job of log checking, the writing of the awards and their dispatch has reached an end. An unprecedented number of award could be sent out. All the awards above the 'Basic' were sent out together with a commemorative Medal struck by the Israel Government ...... for Coins and Medals. So you can be assured to received a genuine medal.

Here is the resume: of the quantities of Awards of each category: Basic - 438. Copper - 198. Silver - 115. Gold - 87. Platinum - 175 A grand total of 1013 awards! We do believe that quite a few hams, who could have sent in the request for one of the awards haven't done so yet. Now is your last opportunity to apply for the category of award you are entitled to receive. The "Basic Award' is still without charge, all the others you can receive by sending $10.00 to P.O. Box 17300, 61176 Tel Aviv Israel.

ACTIVITIES OF THE FUTURE

The council of the IARC has adopted the proposal of members for two activities in the future.

1) A social event, to be a joint venture of Jordanian and Israeli radio amateurs commemorating the late Jordanian King Al-Hussein Ibn Talal, JY1.

2) For the forthcoming Millennium the IARC is planning a special event hopefully with the blessing of the Pope. Special calls will be available for foreign amateurs who will pay a visit to Israel in the year 2000 and operate from here. Stations with excellent transmitting equipment as well as good antennas will be on hand for everybody.

Please note: This is only an advanced notice of intentions. The exact particulars will be available in the not so far off future and will be publicised in the HaGal International, on the bands and on Internet As you know, all the events ever launched by the IARC were always of high standard. So will be the 2 proposed activities.

THE REDUNDANT CW TEACHER

For more than a year now, I became a redundant CW teacher.

How did this happen and who is to be blamed? Normally in our lines you can read only optimistic articles. Today my personal outlook is somewhat bleak. More than a year ago I became the Israel's official CW examiner. In all this time there was only one single case I administered a CW test.

Nowadays nobody wants to learn CW in anticipation that this type of communication would become obsolete in Y2K, though the IARU decision is stretching it to the year 2002. Till now most of IARU's member societies prefer to go on with CW requirement.

Actually it is not only the CW that people find obstructive but the need to pass any examination at all People are making 'QSO's'. by Internet. Some days ago a SWL came to me telling me that he made a 'QSO' over a new York Radio Amateur repeater on HF by way of the Internet. That sounds absolutely silly but this is the way things are going on now.

In all of Israel there are at the moment only two clubs that are teaching amateur radio. The big clubs in Tel-Aviv and Haifa are dead. The Tel-Aviv open University, that had courses running, do not offer this type of study as there are not enough applicants. At the moment there are only two very small clubs giving lessons but yet not a single licensed ham has come out.

At the Holon Cub, the club that was active at my home, and most of the recent new licensed hams came from CW classes held by me, with a big social activity, with outings and meetings as well as special activities from 1985 to 1992, has almost ceased to exist. These are hard facts of life for me.

Even two years ago, in several articles, I still expressed my optimism about the future tendencies of Amateur Radio. Still I am most everyday spending time on the band. Still some hams make DXpeditions to far away countries and still the pileups are immense. I enjoy making contacts with old friends and the very few newcomers. QSL cards are sent out, as the final courtesy for a QSO, for every first QSO and of course for any SWL report coming along.

But we, the hams, are an ageing and diminishing breed. From what I have learned the amateur community is getting smaller and smaller by the day, some societies are loosing about 1% of their members due to hams becoming silent keys.

Sometimes I feel like the producer of wooden wheels for horse drawn buggies in the time the automobile had not already been invented but is flourishing at today's level. It is a pity to watch but 'c'est la vie'.

4X1AT .

R-3 HAIFA - WORLD-WIDE LINKED REPEATER

The other night my two metre rig was scanning the repeater channels, when I heard a VA3 station from Whitby Ontario put out a CQ on the Haifa repeater. What?!!! Quickly giving him a call, I learned that he was talking into his computer, connected to the Internet via "Internet Phone". A good solid QSO, with only one or two short moments of silence as the digital packets containing the encoded voice message were transferred a bit more slowly than the time of the speech..

Yes, Ronen 4Z4ZQ has been at it again! He's hooked up R3, the Haifa repeater to the Internet, such that hams world-wide sporting callsigns with access to Internet Phone can give the Haifa Repeater as one of their hook-up choices, and get on the air here. Other repeaters in the world that have a link to Internet Phone can link up with R3 such that a QSO between a 2 metre mobile station in the USA and a similar station in Israel is possible.

How it's actually done, we don't quite know, but Ronen says that if you point your Internet "Search Engine" to "Repeater Link", you can get the whole story. Indeed, some of the purists amongst us may say that this isn't really "ham radio". Nonetheless, I thought it was pretty neat, and I reckon that this high-tech phone-patch is a pretty hard act to follow.

-4X1MK

E4 - THE PALESTINIAN AUTONOMOUS REGION - A NEW DXCC CREDIT

The ITU has finally designated a callsign prefix for our neighbours in the Palestinian Authority. All calls beginning with an "E4" come from these areas. This information is brand new, hot off the wire as it were. The ARRL Letter reports that contacts made with "E4" after February 1st 1999 will count for DXCC.

Noted DX'er, Martti Lane OH2BH is said to be, at the time of writing, working pile-ups from the Palestinian area. We extend our best wishes to the new E4 hams, and hope for co-operation and close ties between Israeli hams and our Palestinian counterparts.

Until next time, 73 de Ahron and Ron