A NEW SPECTRE RISES

The article on the adjacent column comes from a regional Sharon District weekly paper, the antennas in the photo that looks like the moonbounce array of Ralph 4X1IF. A free translation follows:

SUSPICION OF RADIATION FROM RADIO ANTENNAS

RAANANA RESIDENT FEARS RADIATION FROM ANTENNA OF RADIO AMATEUR MAY HARM HER HEALTH – RADIO AMATEUR: EXPERTS CHECKED IT AND FOUND NOTHING – CITY HALL: MATTER UNDER INVESTIGATION

Not only cellular telephone antennas frighten the residents: A citizen of Raanana, who fears from the emission of electromagnetic radiation from the large antennas of radio amateurs on Shikun street in the city, wrote the mayor, Zeev Bilski, that in her area there are a number of kindergartens and she fears for their health and welfare of the neighbors.

The resident pointed out in the letter that in spite of the cellular antennas being periodically inspected, there is no supervision by the authorities regarding the amount of radiation that the radio antennas emit. In her letter she claims, that in the last months she began feeling ill, especially between the hours of 1:00 to 5:00 AM, and in her opinion, the reason comes from the radiation of four radio antennas that one of the neighbors installed. She says that the fifth antenna is installed on his house, on the ground, at the height of her bedroom window,

She claims that she approached her neighbor and requested that he produce a document attesting to the safety of the antennas. She said that apart from a certificate of membership in the Israel Amateur Radio Club, he had no such document. In her letter she adds that in continuation it became clear to her that additional radio amateurs live in the vicinity of her home. She contends that she contacted the Ministry of the Environment, and she was told that the State of Israel has no law regarding radio radiation, and thus there is no inspection of radio amateurs’ antennas.

In her letter to Bilski, the resident requests his help in ascertaining that the radio amateurs of the city will not continue to operate without supervision, especially in residential neighborhoods. She made it clear that in the area a number of child care institutions operate, and she fears for the health of the children.

The radio amateur said in response: “I have authorization a s a radio amateur from the Ministry of Communication. Every few years I renew that license and a month ago I received an authorization allowing me to transmit until the year 2009. The complaining neighbor requested an inspection of experts as to the level of radiation, and two moths ago they were in my home and in hers, and they found nothing. Sadly, she did not believe the findings of the experts that she invited.”

The city of Raanana in response: “Transmitting installations of all kinds require permits by the local authorities. The matter is known and being taken care of by the engineering department and the regional unit of the Ministry of the Environment.”

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And what do we have to say about this?

This article appeared in the IARC Internet forum and received many comments. The overwhelming number of respondents pooh-poohed the matter and dismissed the lady as a crack-pot.

Yet, there is growing awareness of the potential dangers of cellular telephone antennas that keep popping up on building roofs in close quarters to dwelling places. The dangers of continual 900 MHz radiation, not to mention a cell-phone emitting a goodly portion of its energy right into the cranium of the user, are becoming more and more a subject of investigation with yet inconclusive results. It has been the topic of a few prime-time TV broadcasts.

One may easily say, “If a little cell-hone antenna can be giving me a brain tumor, what about those monster ham antennas on my neighbor’s roof? Your scribe has had difficulty explaining to one of his neighbors that the toroids he installed on her TV to take out the interference are not endangering her with radiation in her home. A ham friend of mine in town has had much trouble with a neighbor fearing radiation danger.

This matter needs to be addressed by the IARC and I believe we would do well to have a well-written authoritative pamphlet, easily understood in day-to-day language, printed for distribution to all fearful neighbors. This is yet another threat to our hobby that needs be dealt with.

THE 4X6KJ REPORT

By Joe “Yossi” Obstfeld 4X6KJ

Licenses:

As reported in the previous issue (February) all registered license holders have been mailed a “payment” slip for license renewal.

Your scribe has been extremely busy together with the Treasurer, Paul 4X6UU, to make the appropriate list for the credit card size “license that the IARC will prepare for the paid up members. It was first intended to close the project on the 31^st of January, but that deadline has been extended to the 1^st of March 2005.

As of today, there are some 300 license to be produced in small format, this of members that have fulfilled all requirements,

The 2005 membership cards will follow on the heels of this batch. The new license is valid for a period of 5 years.

AGM: (Annual General Meeting)

The date has been set, the wheels are in motion. The AGM will be held at the Tel Aviv University, Lev Auditorium on the 7^thof April 2005.

Meeting time is 18.00 hours, we will meet new & old friends in the lobby then at 19.00 hours sharp, the proceedings will start.

This year the evening will have a different form as promised by the organizing committee,

Lectures:

The weekly lectures, organize by Tuvia 4X4GT, are still going strong, every week there is another subject. This month, March, there will be a festive evening celebrating the 3^rd anniversary of this most wonderful and interesting project. “Kol Hakavod” Tuvia.

DXCC:

A reminder to all active HF amateurs, DXCC cards can now be “field checked” at home (in Israel). Your DXCC cards can be send to Joseph 4X6KJ, P.O. Box 873, Kiriat Ono.

Or you can contact him by way of: telephone; e-mail; skype; or any other means of communication.

Ham Radio:

This year’s “Ham Radio” event, will be held on 24, 25 and 26 June 2005. We still have some rooms available near Friedrichshafen (Germany).

- de 4X6KJ

HAIFA REPEATER QSY’s

WHAT A VIEW !

Veteran repeater guru David Shmueli, 4X1WA next to the VHF repeater antenna on the Haifa University’s roof. During the maintenance the UHF R78 repeater’s antenna was found disconnected, possibly from a lightening strike. A new antenna was fabricated from Heliax parts on the spot!

In February, the input and output frequencies of the Haifa R12 VHF repeater were swapped:

144.700 MHz has become the output frequency (downlink) and 145.300 the input (uplink) frequency. In other words, your transceiver’s frequency readout should show 144.700 while on receive and the offset SHIFT set to +600 KHz (not minus as with all the other repeaters in our fair land).

As Itzik Merkado 4X6ZH, IARC repeater committee chairman wrote (our translation):

“The reason for this is a Lebanese repeater situated in Beirut. The output frequency of the of the Lebanese repeater was the input frequency of our repeater. (One can see the repeater on Echolink.) All our trying to have the output frequency of that repeater moved were met with derision and inconsideration.

“By switching the frequencies, both repeaters will transmit on the same frequency. The input frequency of our repeater will be free and the output frequency will be the same as that of the Lebanese repeater. Instead of them blocking us, we will interfere with them but not block them.

“In order to receive the repeater quietly, one can operate the PL (CTCSS) on receive.

“The other solution was to completely change the Haifa VHF repeater’s frequency. Continuing to operate the repeater on its former frequencies would cause the repeater to be blocked hours on end by the Lebanese machine. That repeater transmits by Internet activation (most of its activity is through the Internet) without anyone triggering the repeater by 2 meter activity.

“Another solution (would have been) blocking the Lebanese repeater which would have amounted to a declaration of war of interference and mutual blocking (and we have many repeaters that can be easily blocked). In the framework of attempts to deal with interference from the north, antennas have been changed. An antenna was installed whose pattern allowed control over its areas of coverage.

“The change of frequencies is temporary as an experiment, and it will always be possible to go back to the original situation.”

THE IARC SERVER

For many years the IARC has been online providing the IARC members with Email and website services. Behind the scenes, with so many IARC operations, are tireless volunteers, including Tidhar Teucher 4Z5CA who is the technical man keeping things running and Etzion Barnoi 4Z7ACI the server’s administrator. Here’s a free translation of his report to the IARC council:

“There are about 140 active users enjoying the services of Email, site storage, virus prevention and data security. The daily traffic of messages is in the number of thousands and the monthly traffic is about 95 Gigabytes (count them).

“The main effort is in data security and in keeping the server whole and available, preventing break-ins and takeovers by hostile hackers.

“Tidhar intends to add services from time to time as he can to increase the server’s availability and take care of members’ requests.

“There is a need to upgrade the computer to withstand the load of traffic, and we must enlarge the storage capabilities and the reliability.”

AND HERE’S WHAT TIDHAR WROTE (another free translation):

“The IARC server doesn’t rest for a moment – surely non on weekends with about 140 users (some of them very heavy). Two weeks ago we celebrated with a festive dinner a year of activity without a hitch and without a reset.

“365 continuous days full of viruses, spammers and abusers and other Evil or Very Mad that the devil didn’t even know about. As fate would have it, a power supply that survived much more than a year’s warranty that apparently received much never-ending abuse by its UPS that itself did us a favor allowing us to get to the first birthday, decided to give up its soul to the Creator on Saturday at noon, actually during the siesta.

On Saturday evening the expert was sent to the Actcom Embassy in Haifa and the server was returned to service As though there was no tomorrow. An new uninterrupted power-supply (UPS) is on its way to installation in the server.

Those who are interested in closely following the work of the server are invited to access to server via Telnet (with a group of commands and passwords that we won’t reproduce here).

“In general, if there are requests, complaints, suggestions, questions, misunderstandings or updates, you are invited, regardless of religion, race or gender to contact me.”

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Indeed, we have found the IARC server to be reliable and running with very little down-time. This is one of the great benefits of IARC membership, and is indeed worth more than membership fee! Our praise to Tidhar and his associates on an on-going job well done.

NEWS BRIEFS AND SHORTS

In mid February, at “Culture-Shabbat” in Raanana, MC’ed by the renown media celebrity Moshe Nestelbaum, the IARC and some of its activities were presented. Emergency aid including that to the Tsunami disaster was covered. Amongst the interested audience was a veteran wireless officer, a lady from the pre-State Hagana.

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Amnon 4X1DF was elected to as the official IARC delegrate to the GAREC, the Global Amateur Radio Emergency Communications
Conference to be held in Tampere, Finland, June 13 -- 14, 2005.

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A field day is planned for April 30^th at the Ilanot forest with the accent on CW operation. A number of visitors from abroad are expected. It will be organized by 4Z5KJ aided by 4Z5NB, 4Z4KX, 4Z5MU and 4Z5LZ.

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The IARC Annual General Meeting will be held at the Tel-Aviv Universityon Thursday April 7^th from 6 to 11 PM.

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“Ham Radio” at Friedichshafen Germany, Europe’s answer to the Dayton Hamvention, will be held on July 24 to 26^th. The IARC will be on hand with its booth as usual there.

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73 de Ahron and Ron

HAGAL INTERNATIONAL

April 2005