[ARRL-OK] News Article

[arrl-ok@mailman.qth.net]

Neat article, as below in the March 31, 2003 Daily Oklahoman.  Enjoy  73, 
John-WB5SYT

Ham radio operators listen for voices from Middle East 

2003-03-31
<A HREF="mailto:dzizzo@oklahoman.com">By David Zizzo</A>
The Oklahoman


Every morning for three weeks, David Dary tried. Finally, one day, amid the 
sputter, he caught a scratchy response. Trolling through frequencies with his 
ham radio, Dary had hooked a transmission from an expedition in the mountains 
of Nepal. 

"You feel like you've accomplished something," Dary said. 

For many amateur radio fans, the search for rare contact can make all the 
equipment and the time spent using it worthwhile. The rarer the better. These 
days, among the rarest contacts are those in the Middle East, especially 
countries like Iraq. 

"You don't have any ham radio operators to speak of in Iraq," said Dary, a 
retired University of Oklahoma journalism professor who lives in Norman. "I 
don't think they have had any since Saddam Hussein went in some 25 years 
ago." 

Among those into DX, radio shorthand for "long distance," contacts with 
certain countries are considered a broadcasting coup. China's a good one. So 
is Vietnam. DXers say ham contacts seem to get even rarer around the Middle 
East, though, especially in countries under strict government control. 

"There are just not many operators over there," Jimmy Richardson said. 

Through rotating, di-pole and various other antennae tethered to trees, 
chimneys and garages about his Oklahoma City home, Richardson has done some 
interesting electronic wandering. 

"Many countries all over the place, but never into Iraq or any of those 
places," said Richardson, a computer system administrator at Tinker Air Force 
Base. "I'm sure that countries like Iran and Iraq are so repressed that 
nobody operates." 

Afghanistan, for example, he said, "was essentially off the air for years and 
years until we invaded." Since then, one or two hams have begun operating, 
the first one being the World Food Bank, Richardson said. 

To make contacts that far away takes lots of transmitting power or good 
atmospheric "skip" conditions, the right timing, the right frequency and 
plenty of luck. Still, such contacts have been known to be made in the Middle 
East, Dary said. For example, he said, several operators in Western countries 
recounted hearing transmissions from someone in Jordan. 

"They called him. Turned out to be the king," Dary said. 

Jordan's King Hussein, who died in 1999, was an amateur radio operator, Dary 
said. 

Even when, or if, contact is made with the rare ham operators in regions such 
as the Middle East, the contact is unlikely to provide much information, at 
least about things like war. There are two reasons for that. 

For one, ham operators avoid talking about politics or religion, J. Liebmann 
of Piedmont said. "It's long been a fast rule of our hobby." 

His radio appetite is more for bouncing Morse code messages off the moon 
using a huge satellite uplink and receiver. Still, he has held regular ham 
conversations with people from more than 130 countries. 

Another reason the rare Mideast contact provides little information is time. 
There isn't much. After an initial rare contact is made, information about it 
is posted on the Internet, and soon other ham operators hoping to get through 
on the frequency line up like sparrows on a utility wire. 

"Oh man, here's comes the flood," Richardson said. "It's a rush." 

Take, for example, a contact that just appeared from Sudan, he said. "There 
is just literally a pileup of people trying to work them." 

Many radio operators collect "QSL" cards -- postcards mailed by a contact 
confirming the contact. Etiquette among hams making rare contacts is to speak 
very little before signing off so the next person can sign on. 

"Basically all you get is name, call sign and 'Thank you very much,'" 
Richardson said. 

Ham radio isn't what it used to be. While more hams are using equipment 
that's more capable and sophisticated, many more effective and simple forms 
of communication are available these days to communicate with people around 
the world. 

Rather than buying thousands of dollars in radio equipment, learning codes, 
getting licenses, erecting and tuning antennae, most people just flip open a 
phone or sit at a computer. 

"The ease with which one can communicate with someone else anywhere in the 
world by e- mail, day or night, is maybe taking a kind of edge off amateur 
radio," Dary said. 

In some emergencies when more conventional systems are overloaded or 
inoperative, hams still serve as perhaps the best alternative method of 
communication. Regardless of other technologies, though, for hams, there's 
still something special about sending your own signal into the air. 

"To me, there's still kind of a magic in the process of radio," Dary said. 







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