AND THE WINNERS ARE.....
Mark 4Z4KX, our IARC contest manager and all-round work-horse, has completed the monumental task of tabulating and checking all the logs received for this year's Holyland DX contest, that took place during April this year. (Please see the May issue of this newsletter.)

First of all some statistics - Israeli participants sent in 88 logs (not bad), and another 301 logs were received from 51 DXCC countries in 5 continents (we missed only African participation this year).

Poland topped the list with 46 logs received, European Russia with 35, Germany 33, Ukraine 17, Romania 15, Bulgaria 13, Lithuania 10, Czech Republic and Italy both with 9, Crotia 8, Finland, Japan, Assiatic Russia and Slovakia each with 7 logs apiece, the USA, Belgium and Estonia with 6 logs each, Hungary 5, Netherlands, Norway, Yugoslavia and Turkey with 4 logs each, and so on.... A point of interest is the Palestinian Authority participation on the Holyland side.

And now, the winners... Please bear in mind that the closer geographically the participants are to the Holyland, the easier it is for them to rack up contacts and points, so special credit should be given to those hardy hams far afield who had to fight through the European pile-ups to be heard here with their considerably weaker signals. A tip of the hat and vigorous handshake goes off to them!

Callsigns are followed by their total score (and number of contacts in brackets):

Top world single operator stations:
DF2CK 75,012 (314); EU6DX 44,688 (233); LY3CI 41,760 (223); LY1DT 41,585 (222); HA8RJ 33,517 (232); OM4JD 32,760 (212); YO3ND 31,920 (205); RA3CW 30,988 (195); SP5JTF 30,600 (255); PA3AJW 29,568 (200).

Top world multi-ops:
LY3MR 90,226 (352); RZ6HXN 27,572 (183); SP4KGB 21,630 (210); DH1LL 21,255 (174); SP9KRT 11,154 (143).

Top single-op continental scorers: Asia - EK6CC 13,746 (120); Europe - DF2CK (see above); North America - K1DWQ 4,125 (75); South America - LT5Y 35 (7) ; Oceania - ZL3GS 667 (29).

Holyland Top Scores:
Single Op Fixed mixed mode:
4X4RE (4Z5LA op), 4X6ZK and 4Z1UF
Multi Op fixed: 4Z4SZ, 4X2S and 4X1UK
Mobile: 4X4JU (1730 QSO's - more QSO's than any fixed single op station!!!!), 4X1VF and 4X1KS
CW Only: 4Z1AX, 4X4FJ and 4X/G3WQU
SSB: 4X0F (4Z5FL op), 4X30DIG (4X1AT op) and 4Z5FI
Palestinian Autonomy: E41/OK1DTP with 1,196 QSOs.

This but only a brief summary of the results, and a complete breakdown of all participants' scores may be found on the IARC website (www.iarc.org).

On a more minor note, the IARC Inland Independence Day VHF-UHF Contest results are also in, with VHF-UHF single op leaders being 4Z5DB, 4X4LF and 4Z5IQ, VHF single ops: 4X1MK, 4Z9GHI and 4Z5FH, mobile: 4Z5FL, multi-op: 4Z5FZ, portables: 4X6HF, 4Z5LL and 4Z7HHH. Scoring on this contest is a direct function of the sum-total of the geographical distance of all the QSOs.
 

YANKELE

If you ask any Israeli Radio Amateur, who is the most known 'Old-timer', most adored and the most valued ham in Israel, the answer will point Yankele 4X1AH.

Yankele is quite unique in many respects. He was already transmitting even during the time of the British mandate. He had been the Honorary President of IARC for over 10 years. Yankele is an excellent speaker at any occasion. If it is the opening of the IARU Region I meeting in Tel-Aviv, addressing the yearly general meeting of IARC or, hopefully never ever again while standing at the opened grave of one of our friends. Yankele always finds the right words at any occasion.
Yankele's personal history, curiculum vitae, is, if ever written, most exciting and will be fill all the many pages of a thick, in may cases thriller like, book.

Yankele, who has a television repair shop near the Dizengoff Circus, is himself one of the outstanding technichians in his profession. Every morning he is visiting, from 10 to 11 o'clock AM, a certain coffee house on Dizengoff street, one of the main shopping routes of Tel-Aviv, which is located near the center of town.. Amateurs from all over the world find it a 'duty' to visit him there, are invited by Yankeele to sip a cup of coffee with him. `If (as a foreign ham. paying a visit to Israel) you haven't seen Yankele in Tel-Aviv - you haven't been in Tel-Aviv!'

Yankele is also the initiator of 'The Shabat Net', a net operating most every Saturday mornings on 14.325 MHz. which is mainly a 'check in' and meeting frequency for Jewish and other amateurs who want to keep up their relations with us, the Israeli hams. Many are listening in and some also take part in those conversations.
We will bring some excerpts of his personal life in one of our forthcoming issues of HaGal International.

For the last few years Yankele contributes articles to the Hebrew languge bi-monthly ham magazine, HaGal, about his life and his views on Amateur Radio. All these articles go under the title the 'The Shabat Net - the third side of Amateur Radio'. We are happy to be able, by his personal consent, to bring you some excerpt of his articles. Not in chronological order but on whatever topic looks important to us at a certain time.

For instance, in the September of the HaGal issue Yankele writes about his quest to locate 'lost' Israeli amateurs. who live all over our globe. Every mean is 'kosher', even if it means to go on to the Internet leaving messages with the request for an sought 4X ham to drop him a line, meet him on the band or using every way of communicating 'even' if it means to pick up a telephone......

We will mention here just one of the three cases mentioned in that particular article. It is the case of a 4X4JM whom we lost sight of, more than ten years ago.

We will mention here just one of the three cases mentioned in that particular article. It is the case of a 4X4JM Eviatar Kaplan, whom we lost sight of more than ten years ago, somewhere in Arizona USA. He went there for the dry weather, which does him good healthwise. (This fact was confirmed by other ex-Israeli hams in the States). There everyone lost track of him.

The computer. produced lots of Kaplans, in Arizona, but the name Evi was not among them. Only the name 'Abe' together with a phone number. Yankele rang this number up, just to be told the he left a few month ago. Yankele conveyed this fact to his fellow hams in the States and was told that Kaplan changed his name to Oren.

On Saturday night, when the run on the Internet had died down, Yankele went out to 'fish' for the former friend. Trying the telephone register of Arizona, there were two entries by the name of Oren, one in Phoenix the second at Tampa. The first called resulted in 'no reply'. The second call produced a ladies voice. and she replied, after introducing myself politely and asking about Abe, a radio ham, affirmatively. The resulting conversation lasted for over half an hour. Abe told about himself, working for Motorola, his wife a doctor of psychology. He of course remembered everybody in Israel and apologized for not visiting Yankele during one of his visits to the Holy Land.

Well, this is Yankele. Never giving up on old friend wherever they are and not minding about the money such a hone call might have cost. That is his way and we love him for all he is doing!
 
 
 

Until next time, 73 de Ahron and Ron