4X4MIS CONTEST STATION

A few months ago we got the idea to put new life in the 4X4MIS club station at the Mikve Israel agricultural school in southern Tel-Aviv.

The plan was to put up a station that will be for the use of new students to learn ham radio during there study and to install good antennas for use during contests. It took us few months of week ends and today we can be proud of the results.

Thanks to Alex 4Z5KJ, Dov 4Z4DX, Simi 4Z5PS, Morel 4X1AD, Yacov 4X6WP, Shlomo 4X6LM and the management of the school. Visitors are welcome.

de 4X6ZK, Mony

Thanks, Mony, for this report. In the meantime, W3GG, WD3I, 4X6ZK, 4Z4DX and 4Z5KJ have put this station on the air for the CW-WWDX SSB contest with the call 4X0G. expect a lot of activity from Mikve.

4X7AZ AKHZIV ISLAND – IOTA AS-100

Editor’s note – In the last issue we presented you with details of the 4Z4KJ-4Z4DX expedition to Akhziv Island. Until now, for obvious security reasons, the authorities would not permit an overnight stay on the islands, so 4X1VF’s group has dset a new precedent. Thanks to Jan and qrz.co.il (where you can see the pictures) for this report:

In Israel, as you may heard there are several small islands along the coastline. The islands are small, so only one island can be a target site for radio operation if the sea is not rough. Compare to other countries in the area, like Greece and Turkey that Owns hundreds of islands and we have only one small island called Akhziv.

The island is a small rock about 40 meters wide, 160 meters long and only one meter above sea level. The island is located 1300 meters from the coastline of Israel on the Mediterranean sea. This is the only island that’s count for the IOTA program (AS-100).

Following many requests from all over, I decided to lead this operation to AS-100 again. The last operation we did was in year 2000 – using the call 4X0A. We asked and received from the authorities the call 4X7AZ for two reasons.

4X7 is a rare prefix for the prefix hunters and AZ stands for Akhziv. For the first time we decided to stay overnight on the island and to operate 30 hours non stop. We wanted to give the island to all the countries that was not able to contact this site during day light.

October 14-15 2005 was chosen as clear two days without any major contests or DX Expeditions. The team members were Shalom 4Z4BS, Mark 4Z4KX, Ruben 4Z5FI, Ruslan 4Z5LA, Yuli 4X6HP and myself.

The island is close to the Lebanese boarder (OD) so we was obliged to keep the vessel and the skipper with us all the duration of the activity.

The team met on Friday morning in a small Marina three miles from Akhziv. We loaded quickly the vessel (500kg) and headed to the island. We reached the island in half an hour.

The island was covered 80% with shallow water about 5 inches high. We were obliged to walk two days in salty water.

Eqipment:

- IC706, IC746, TS450

- Linear Amplifier 800W - Homebrew by UT2FW

- 15/40M Vertical with Radials, R5, Lakeview sticks, MFJ mobile antenna.

- 2KVA and 1KVA generators with gas and oil.

- Band Pass Filters to run 3 stations without RFI.

- 2 Laptops for computerized network logging.

- Antenna cables, power cables and all the required accessories.

We installed quickly the first rig TS450, Battery and the MFJ mobile Antenna and started the heavy pile-up with Europe and Asia.

We assembled the main stations that included the IC746 and the 800watt linear amplifier. We erected the home made vertical for 15/40 meters in the center of the lagoon, with 4 mating radials in the salty water. This antenna set-up performed as an “electromagnetic mirror”. We connected this set-up to the 2KVA generator to run the station smoothly.

Important note for island operators: We were told by several local antenna experts that if we can not put a Yagi antenna above 12 meters high, the verticals will perform much better with the surrounding salty water. They were right.

The third station included the IC706, R5 vertical antenna on a tripod and the small 1KVA generator.

The pile-ups were heavy and we had to work by numbers in SSB rather than trying to work split frequency. On CW we worked mainly split.

Conditions were good comparing to the poor conditions we faced this year, mainly on the high bands. 10/12/15 meters were open and we worked many DX stations as well. We worked 76 different countries during the 30 hours of operation.

During the night hours we focused on 40 meters CW AND TRIED TO “GIVE” THE ISLAND TO MANY NA west coast guys that were looking for the AS-100 contact.

I took care on the food and drinks for the team. On the first day I fished 20 nice snappers and prepared a royal dinner for the team. Shalom 4Z4BS celebrated his 73^rd birthday! Yes he was 73 years young with the team on the island. We opened wine and vodka to celebrate with Shalom this great event. The mood of the team was very high after refueling the members with vodka. The team worked in full steam to make a record number of contacts from the island.

We couldn’t sleep on the island. The few dry places were covered with very sharp rocks that could not allow us to put down a sleeping bag.

During the next day we continued in our massive operation till 1530. The water around the island became rough afternoon and we faced many difficulties to load the vessel on our way back. Finally we left the island on 1730 back to the small marina. It was two busy days. We made 3449 QSO’s in 30 hours of operation.

I want to thank all the team members for the efforts to make it happen.

QSL Manager FOR 4X7AZ is Ruslan 4Z5LA

-73 es shalom de Jan 4X1VF

TOP TEN 2005 HOLYLAND SCORES

1 4J7WMF AS SSB

2 4L4C AS SSB

3 9A2VN EU CW

4 9A3B EU MULTIOP

5 AA3B NA CW

6 AT0D op.VU3DJQ AS SSB

7 CT1EGB EU SSB

8 DD1IM EU CW

9 DE2MIR EU SWL

10 DE3CDE EU SWL This is just a teaser, to whet your appetite for more details… See our next issue, if you can wait!

THE MACCABIAH GAMES AWARD

Tsachy 4Z4TL has mailed out, for those making contact with the Maccabiah Games stations, once of the most handsome awards I have ever seen. See our previous issue for details of this huge operation.

Below is Anna, OM6AQ in her shack with her Gold Maccabiah Award for working 14 stations on CW.

UPCOMING DEAD SEA OPERATION

Not resting on his laurels, Jan 4X1VF announces that the "HOLYLAND DX GROUP " will operate Dec 23-24 2005 starting 7 UTC, from the middle of the Dead Sea, the lowest dry point on the globe, 411 meters below the sea level. Special permission from the Dead Sea Works factory positioned in the very rare Holyland squares M25BS and M26BS.

The call sign will be 4X411A. Keep your ears open for this one.

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The gala IARC Social Event, the likes of which we haven’t seen for years, is slated for early January…

Further details to be had on the weekly IARC net and website: www.iarc.org

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Amnon 4X1DF was invited to Slovenia to report on the IARC emergency network.

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Only ten written submissions have been received regarding opininions on the retention of Morse testing. It seems that those who cared enough to write their views for the most part favor the retention of the Morse requirement for HF access.

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Arieh Sourkiss 4X6UO is working on a radio license learning kit for the sightless. Hat’s off for this initiative.

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The IARC has petitioned the Ministry of Communications to open the 7.1-7.2 MHz segment to amateur use, as is being done in Europe. The moving of all broadcast stations from the segment is slated for the year 2009.

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A proposal has been made to streamline the IARC council to nine members. If nothing else, this should shorten the time at the Annual General Meeting required to coerce members to be candidates for the executive.

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An unhappy statistic… Paul 4X6UU has shown that in the last decade our membership has dropped from 684 in 1996 to 559 members in 2005. That’s 126 members less.. a drop of 18.4% in ten years.

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A new amateur radio course, taught by Sarit Inger 4Z4PF, has begun at the IARC headquarters, 4X4ARC. Sarit is carrying on in the fine family tradition begun by her dad, Moshe 4Z1PF, who inaugurated an amateur radio study course years ago with the Open University. To this day his textbook is widely used.

_…_

It seems that the next International Amateur Radio Union convention, in three years time, will be held in OD5-Land, neighboring Lebanon. Let us hope that the situation will change by then to allow an Israeli delegation to attend.

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That is it for this issue, dear friends. As we head into the winter, make sure those antennas are well anchored, and don’t forget to get on the low bands that are nearing their peak as we reach the sunspot minimum.

BCNU!

73 de Ahron and Ron

HAGAL INTERNATIONAL

December 2005