ISRAEL HAM NEWS --- APRIL ‏2002

Shlomo Menuhin 4X1AS holds the microphone as youngsters near Tel-aviv query Peggy Whitson KC5ZTD on board the International Space Station NA1SS. Lower right – Ziv 4X1UK

Photo by Tuvia 4X4GT

Israeli School Children Contact International Space Station by Amateur Radio

For over two years here in Israel, preparations have been in the making for an amateur radio contact between school children and the International Space Station. Finally, after some delays because of priorities aboard the space station, the date was set for September the second.

The site chosen was the space observatory (telescope dome) in Givatayim, a Tel-Aviv suburb, characterising the nature of the event. About a week before the event, the IARC volunteers set up a four metre tower on the roof of the building, at a spot chosen to be sure to see the Space Station as soon as it crossed the horizon into Israel’s skies. To grace the tower, a multi-element circular-polarised yagi sat anchored to an azimuth – elevation antenna rotator. Inside the building’s lecture hall the VHF transceivers, power supplies, and track box (a computerised box that would automatically track the antennas to the exact position of the Space Station) were set up.

Fifteen youths were chosen by the youth magazine “Rosh Gadol” (Big Head) which took care of all the administrative arrangements. Thus the hams had only to deal with the technical aspects of the operation.

The final adjustments of the equipment began three days before the assigned date, taking a many hours of work. There was strong RF overload in the reciever from commercial VHF stations in the vicinity, which, fortunately, a special filter procured at the last minute cleared up.

Monday, two hours before zero-hour, 15 girls and boys from ages 10 to 15 were ready and the excitement was building up. A few minutes before 1:00 PM Shlomo 4X1AS explained what the equipment was designed to do and what was about to happen. The director of the Israeli Space Agency, Mr. Avi Har-Even spoke about the co-operation between the Agency and the Israel Amateur Radio Club, noting of course the Techsat satellite (please see our last issue).

At the precise computed moment of “Acquisition of Signal” (when the Space Station was to appear over the horizon), 4X1AS took the mike and called “NA1SS here is 4Z4SAT”. The tension was at its peak… would the Space Station crew be free for the contact? Was all the gear operating properly? About 50 people present held their breaths. Among them were members of the press and the Galei Tzahal radio station broadcasting the event live, parents of the kids, the director of the space observatory and the hams who had worked to make this happen.

“4Z4SAT, here is Peggy on NA1SS” boomed back from the loudspeaker. Relief! Shlomo began the contact with the astronaut which was excellent in quality. One after another, the youngsters approached the microphone and asked:

“How do you manage with the rapid changes from day to night?”

“What do you think when you see Earth below you?”

“Can you see Israel now?”

“What happens when you’re sick?”

“Will there be space tourism in the future?”

“How much time did you have to train before going into space?”

“What do you miss most when you’re in space?”

The Space Station passed overhead for ten minutes, and Shlomo took advantage of every second. He said goodbye to Peggy at the very moment before the spacecraft passed to below the horizon in the south-east.

The operation had been an overwhelming success. Galei Tzahal had broadcast the minutes leading up to the contact and the contact itself as well as an interview with the youths and Ziv 4X1UK who had invested days and nights in preparing and installing the gear. As well, the Educational Television channel broadcasted the exciting minutes of the operation. A large photograph with a fitting caption was found in the largest selling daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronot.

Hats off to those who laboured and thought hard to make this happen: Ziv 4X1UK who saw every detail through, Shlomo 4X1AS who conducted the contact with the benefit of his experience and professionalism, taking pains to see that the equipment and antenna would operate precisely. And not to forget those who lugged all the heavy gear, without whom the tower and antenna would not have gone up, and everything would not have ticked as the proverbial Swiss watch… amongst them were Yaakov 4Z4GT, Tsahi 4Z4TL, `On 4Z4KQ and your faithful servant Moshe 4Z1PF.

(translated from 4Z1PF’s narrative from the last issue of HaGAL.)

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Ganei Yehoshua Picnic - Field Day

photograph by Paul 4X6UU

An estimated two hundred hams were present at the Field Day / Picnic at the Gan Yehoshua Park in Tel-Aviv on Saturday October 26^th, about 150 of them call-sign holders. A few stations were operated there, plenty of barbecues were making burnt offerings, and Mark 4Z4KX reported that a few well-known hams from abroad came to raise the spirits – notably W1SKY, B1ER and W1NE.

4X6KJ and 4Z4KX worked hard to organise the affair. There was even a flea market on location that did a brisk business. Dayton and Friedrichshafen – look out!

Special thanks to Nahum 4Z4MQ who works at the park. He fenced off the area before the event and set up tables. 4Z5KJ set up a television,VCR and sound system and screened a DXpedition film.

All in all the event was a big success and everyone is waiting for the next one

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NEWS BRIEFS

STOP THE PRESS – Antenna Restrictions Eased?

* An unconfirmed story is making the rounds that as a result of the proliferation of cellular telephone site antennas, the national authority for municipal planning has eased the restrictions on antenna installations. As a result, so it is said, the amateur radio community has gained. Is it indeed true that hams will no longer have to file applications and get all kinds of waivers from different authorities before raising a new skyhook? Stay tuned… hopefully by our next issue, the dust will have cleared, and we’ll know what the truth is.

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The IARC will plant one hundred and nineteen trees in the Silent Keys’ Forest in memory of those radio amateurs who lost their lives in the terrorist murders on September 11 2001 in the USA.

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Joe 4X6KJ and Ruth 4X4CM have gone to San Marino to represent the IARC at the IARU (International Amateur Radio Union) conference.

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A sponsor or sponsors are sought to finance the trophies, certificates and score-results booklets for the next Holyland Intenational DX Contest. Please contact IARC contest manager Mark Stern 4Z4KX if you can help out.

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The lecture series continues at the IARC headquarters, with no shortage of interesting topics. 4Z4VR has given a talk on the workings of air conditioners. There has been yet another talk on the hams’ perennial favourite – antennas. If you’ve got something of interest – don’t keep it to yourself! Give Tuvia 4X4GT a call, and he’ll put you on the schedule.

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LZ5GB on behalf of the Amateur Radio Society of Bulgaria has thanked the IARC for the donation of a two metre repeater.

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The IARC offices in the Motorola building in Tel-Aviv are open every Friday to all the hams for membership services. The word is that more and more people are turning up week after week, and the venue is becoming a weekly meeting place for those amateurs who don’t have to attend the “salt mines” on Fridays.

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4Z4KX Judges for WRTC2002 Competition

This past summer, our friend Mark, illustrious and accomplished IARC contest manager, was chosen to be one of the judges in the World Radiosport Team Championship competition held in Finland.

Fifty-two identical stations with identical beam antennas are set up around Finland, and assigned callsigns with an OJ prefix, a single digit and single letter suffix. Fifty-two pairs of top world Dxers are invited to represent their countries, draw a station to operate, and all go into the World Radiosport contest under equal operating conditions. Under such terms, no one has an advantage of a better station or location, so it is skill pitted against skill.

Mark, 4Z4KX, was chosen by the draw to be the overseer of OJ2Z, operated by the U.K. team of G4PIQ and G4BWP. They placed 29^th with 1,277,950 points. By way of comparison, the 1^st place winning team from the USA, OJ3A operated by N5TJ and K1TO made 1,629,798 points, and the 46^th place team were the first to drop below a million points. All in all, a close competition, with an opening assembly and closing banquet and awards given out!

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Dov 4Z4DX is the first ham ever in the world to confirm DXCC by electronic QSLs. Although still not recognised by the DXCC, eQSL is gaining ground in the DX community, and it is probably only a matter of time before the powers-that-be in DXCC-Government make some kind of guidelines for honouring the new non-paper QSL cards.

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The committee to deal with the World Administrative Radio Council (WARC) has met, consisting of 4X1SK, 4X1AB (co-ordinator), 4X4GI and 4X6KJ. A letter has gone out to the Ministry of Communications including a request to work shoulder-to-shoulder on the matter.

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November has seen the commencement of new amateur radio courses and the IARC HQ. We are still training new hams and expect to near new callsigns on the bands in the not too distant future!

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HELP WANTED

The editor of HAGAL is looking for a Russian language editor for the magazine. Yes, English is not the only non-Hebraic language of this magazine, and with the large number of Russian-speaking amateurs amongst us, a volunteer is needed to continue the section of this magazine seen in the Cyrillic fonts.

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The IARC committee voted to grant new immigrant hams free IARC membership for their first year, and soldiers and sightless hams a 50% fee reduction.

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* After quite a few years of holding the line, IARC dues have been upped: Single members dues are now 220 shekels a year instead of 200, and family and club membership have been raised to 275 shekels from 250. Still, this is a bargain, considering how many benefits are afforded IARC members, from representation to the Ministry of Communications, QSL bureau services – both incoming and outgoing, access to the country-wide linked network of VHF and UHF repeaters, the HAGAL magazine, and much more.

(EDITORS’ RANTING: Even so, it’s amazing that there are some hams who have huge sums invested in their stations and are too doggone cheap to join the IARC, but rather sit back and justify their own tight-fistedness by crtiticising the achievements and motives of those who give selflessly of their own time, energies and resources to help make the IARC what it is . You and they know who they are. Shame!)

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JUST A COINCIDENCE

For reasons and health and age my wife 4X6OL I 4X1AT had to move from our home to a rented house. All this to be closer to our daughter 4X6WL. Yes, if one becomes 76 years of age one has to make some ‘adjustments’ in life. It was a heartbreaking event For 48 long years we lived in our house and it was really hard to give up the vicinity to our good friends and neighbors in Holon, to leave behind, for a radio amateur, the mast with its yagi and all the arangment built up through the long years to make QSO’s – operating – easy.

So we moved and to our own surprise we learned to love the new home. Our old home were rented out to a couple of new immigrants from what was formerly, the USSR. The first year passed and our tenants decided to move to another city. An ad in a local newspaper brought a lot a of people to look at this well situated site. Among them was a boy whose father was a ham operator. He had seen the 17-meter high mast with its 3-element tribander as well as a two-meter Ringo antenna on top.

The final result. Instead of the voice of 4X1AT you will now hear a new and different voice, that of 4Z5QQ. I brought the new resident the controller of rotator – so a new amateur is all set to operate without the excitement of putting up a beam antenna. I wish him much luck and good DX. In any case I am very happy that the equipment I left behind is still in operation. (41AT)

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George Tommy….

It is a well known fact that for anything to happen in a voluntary organization or society, like our Israel Amateur Radio Club, it needs a completely dedicated man or woman, who will be unselfish and regardless of cost and time perform his ‘duty; Such a man is Tuvia Greengroz 4X4GT. For many years he is the voluntary self-appointed curator of the archives of the IARC. Tuvia has collected every piece of information ever published, every magazine the society brought out through the years and for the last few years has taken virtually hundreds or even thousands of pictures telling the story of our club. Many of them you can see on our web site www.iarc.org .Tuvia was born in Tel Aviv in 1928. In those days electricity wasn’t a commodity for everyone. At last, when his home was hooked up to the mains, and Tuvia got hold by chance of a Popular Mechanics magazine, he found there an article how to build a single tube regenerative receiver. When he connected to the cathode of the 6J6 tube/valve a carbon mike, he found out that his neighbors could hear him. Thus a new radio amateur was born. Now licensed since 1950 he is a very dedicated as well as educated radio amateur. ‘George Tommy’, as he is called by most of us, started collecting items of interest since longer than most of us can remember.

HAGAL INTERNATIONAL

December 2002 Vol. 16 No.11-12