HAGAL INTERNATIONAL
May 1999, Vol. 13 No. 5
Israel Ham News
by Ahron Kirschner 4X1AT and Ron Gang 4X1MK
WHO IS WHO IN THE IARC
The newly elected IARC Council (Vaad) is actually, almost the
same as the outgoing one. The last Vaad did a marvellous job during
the last year, and I personally (4X1AT) am very happy that things will
remain as efficient as during the last 12 months.
The honorary president of our society 4X6KJ Joseph Obstfeld
remained as he was elected for a five year term thus didn’t have to be
re-elected. Eli Stern 4Z5IS will keep the reins for another year
as chairman of the council. His deputy will be Michael Ben-Tovim 4X6PZ.
The secretary is Yehiel Amir 4X6YA and the head of the secretarial office
is Orly Sela 4X6WM. The treasury remains in the able hands of Ricardo Boscovoinik
4X6RB. The liason to the Ministry of Communications is Yakov Sela 4X6WP.
The committee for the installation and maintenance of the repeater network
is held together by Yitzhak Mercado 4X6ZH and Israel Berko 4X1OM. (We can
proudly say that these two hams, with a staff of their choice have brought
our repeater system up-to-date !!). The social events will be arranged
by Paul Gross 4X6UU and Haim Siman-Or 4X6ZI who will also take care of
the IARC inventory. The Digital Communications Committee is also
run by two hams, one in the in north of Israel (Haifa area) - Tidhar Teucher
4Z5CA and in the South (Beer Sheva) - Yitzhak Halevi 4Z7ACF. The
man with the whip, the one who is in charge of looking after the work the
various committees and will be trying to push them on (hi) is Uri Nadir
4Z5GF. Finally Ahron Kirschner 4X1AT is the chief Morse test administrator
as well as the editor of HaGal International, of course together with able
participation and guidance of Ron Gang 4X1MK.
So far the various officers of the Vaad. The two additional
bodies are: The Membership Committee headed by Tuvia Greengroz 4X4GT
with his two assistants Paul Azoulay 4Z5AW and Arie Ben Moshe 4X6R;
and the Watchdog Committee chaired by Mickey Minzary 4X4KK with two aids
- Micha Michaeli 4X1RG and Shalom Barak 4Z4BS.
In addition there are a few ‘Old Faithfuls’ who do their jobs
for the IARC for many years and will do so also in future. Shlomo Mussali
4X6LM will keep up his good work as the editor of the bimonthly Hebrew
‘HaGal’ magazine, 4Z4KX will keep his ‘job’ as contest and award manager,
Malik Webman 4X4JU will continue as the man behind the ‘Holyland Award
Program’ and Shlomo Menuhin 4X1AS remains our co-ordinator to the satellite
program
Let us hope that these man will be able to run the
IARC and prepare our society for the next Millennium. They know they
have to spend lots of time, time which sometimes they actually can’t spare
but did so last year by working ‘additional shifts’. To all of them the
Israel Amateur Radio Club is precious and they would like to see it thrive!
If you have any question to any one of these officers
we include, for your convenience a list of E-Mail addresses:
Joseph Obstfeld 4X6KJ josepho@shani Paul Gross 4X6UU paulg@apelker.co.il
Eli Stern - 4Z5IS sterne@trendline.co.il Tidhar Teucher
4Z5CA tidhar@netvision.net.il
Michael Ben Tovim 4X6PZ papazulu@netvision.net il Itzchak Halevi 4Z7ACF
ihalevi@bgumail.bguil
Yechiel Amir 4X6YA 4x6ya@netvision.net.il Paul Azouly 4Z5AW paul-@internet.zahav..net
Ricardo Boscovoimik 4Z5RB gai@netvision.net.il Arie Ben Moshe 4X6RA
macplus@netvision.net.il
Itzchak Mercado 4X6ZH marcado@netvidion.net.il Orly Sela 4X6WM tom-sela@internet-zahav.net
Israel Berko 4X1OM israel berko@digital.com Yakov Sela 4X6WP tom-sela@internet-zahav.net
Ahron Kirschner 4X1AT 4x1at@ibm.net Tuvia Greengroz 4X4GT tuvia_gt@yahoo.com
Shlomo Mussali 4X6LM mussali@shani.net
IMPRESSIONS FROM THE 1999 HOLYLAND CONTEST
For the past four months I had been occupying my spare
time in an antenna project at our new home, and just hours before the Holyland
DX contest it was ready. A brand new 2 element 5-band spider-quad
was set into the rotor on a guyed tower 12 metres above ground.
The contest takes place around a Sunday, which is a work-day.
Since I can’t afford to take a day off work for the contest, I didn’t expect
to get in much operating. Nonetheless, I did manage to get in about
9 hours on the bands and make about 600 contacts.
(On the Sabbath, observant Jews are forbidden to operate
electrical equipment. Yet most of us Israeli hams do operate on Shabbat.
In 1988 when 4X6KJ and I organised the very successful Israel 40th Anniversary
DX contest, it was on a Saturday, with a special competition class for
observant hams who operated after the Sabbath was over. I think I
will petition the IARC council to return to this practice, as it will allow
much more 4X/4Z stations to get on the air for more time during the contest.
As a secular person, getting on the air is one of the ways I chose to enjoy
my day of rest.)
I operated mainly on 20, 15 and 10 metres CW and SSB (with
a brief excursion to 80 and 40 metres at night with an inferior antenna
for these two bands). I found that all I had to do was find a clear
frequency, call CQ once, and then sit there for over an hour and work the
pile-up as fast as I could. When the frequency dried up, I’d just
QSY to another band or mode and repeat the same strategy. Conditions
were good – not fantastic, but good – and every continent was worked.
After the contest was over, I was called by Walt K1DWQ
on 20 metres. He had been North American champ of this contest for
the last two years, and told me that he had to really work hard this time,
averaging one QSO with Israel for every half hour. Not poor conditions
he said, but just that we Israeli stations could not hear the weaker DX
through the huge pile-up of European stations. We should take a break
every now and then, he said, ask the Europeans to stand by, in order to
work the farther away DX. I plead guilty, as I imagine many of us
4X/4Z hams would, and promise next year to take this to heart. Indeed,
stations in near-by Italy were even 30 dB over 9, where the US and Australian
hams that I managed to work were often only S7. I wonder how many
more I missed by not listening especially for them!
Mark 4Z4KX, perennial contest manager, says that there
were about 100 Israeli callsigns on the air that he knows of. In
addition, a first, E41/OK1DTP operated from the Palestinian Autonomous
Area, giving contacts for the square for Jenin. This underscores
Malik 4X4JU’s statement, reported last month, that the Holyland Award (and
contest) is not political, and Israeli and Palestinian areas have each
a part to play.
de 4X1MK
4X6TU AND THE INTERNATIONAL BEACON NET
For about 15 years now, 4X6TU from the Tel-Aviv University
has been participating in the Northern California DX Foundation’s International
Beacon Net. Full details may be found on http://www.ncdxf.org/beacon.htm.
At present the following stations may be heard: 4U1UN, VE8AT, W6WX,
KH6WO, ZL6B, VK6RKB, JA2IGY, 4S7B, ZS6DN, 5Z5B, 4X6TU, OH2B, CS3B, LU4AA,
OA4B and YV5B. They transmit in sequence, one after the other, on
14.100, 18.110, 21.150, 24.930
and 28.200 MHz. Each cycle is repeated every three minutes. A
transmission consists of the callsign of the beacon sent at 22 words per
minute followed by four one-second dashes. The callsign and the first dash
are sent at 100 watts. The remaining dashes are sent at 10 watts, 1 watt
and 0.1 watts.
Equipment used at each beacon site includes a Kenwood TS-50S
transmitter, a Cushcraft R-5 vertical antenna, a Trimble Navigation Acutime
(TM) GPS receiver (recently updated and renamed the Palasade (TM)) and
a controller built by the NCDXF.
If you want to know what band conditions are like (and especially
how Israel is coming in, HI) you just have to listen in on one of the above
frequencies. Why, just this afternoon, not a ham was on the 24.9
MHz band, yet many of the beacons were pounding in! A deliberate
CQ on this empty band brought the wavelength to life. Hat’s off
to the NCDXF for this amazing project, making empirical propagation information
available any time.
C U next month – 73 de Ahron and Ron