[RVRC] Fw: Article in Haaretz .. Israeli newspaper, 7/25/09]

[Marvin Bronstein]

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> Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 6:48 AM
> Subject: Article in Haaretz .. Israeli newspaper, 7/25/09]
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>      Still gaga over radio
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>      By Oded Yaron
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>      Despite ever more sophisticated technology, amateur radio operators 
> are still here, still sending call signals out into the darkness, and 
> proud that much of the chirping on the Internet was made possible thanks 
> to their developments. All that's lacking is a major earthquake, to prove 
> to all of us how essential the hams still are. Way before Facebook and 
> Twitter linked people very far away from each other, there were those for 
> whom a conversation with someone on the other side of the globe was a 
> routine thing. They were the ham radio operators, who had home radio 
> stations full of equipment with which they talked to enthusiasts like 
> themselves all over the world. From time to time they cropped up in movies 
> and popular culture, and always had an air about them of being masters of 
> the mysteries of technology.
>
>      Today, however, when there are so many ways to communicate with 
> everyone, is there any reason to maintain this veteran, if not to say 
> ancient, technology? A visit to a meeting of the Israel Amateur Radio Club 
> in a space donated by the Motorola company might initially reinforce such 
> doubts. The front room looks like any standard office lobby. Dalmatian 
> files adorn the shelves in the corner of the room and on the wall hang 
> plaques commemorating various events. Only upon closer look can one 
> discern the collection of Morse keys in a glass case and the details of 
> the events imprinted on the plaques.  Advertisement
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>      A first glance at the participants would also cause one to wonder if 
> this isn't really a gathering of the last knights of radio. There is maybe 
> one person there not anywhere near the age of 60. Even the sight of three 
> members sitting on a bench in the club rooms and arguing, or maybe 
> agreeing - the sort of argument one can easily find among, say, computer 
> or motorcycle amateurs - could in fact look like a skit from the satirical 
> show "Zehu Zeh."
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>      "The best receivers are Icoms," says one of them.
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>      "You think I don't know that? I've been with Icom since 1956," says 
> another.
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>      "Nu, so you know everything," replies the first. "You can't be taught 
> anything."
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>      But it would be a grave mistake to depict amateur radio people as 
> dinosaurs clinging to a vanished past. Though they were real geeks way 
> before anyone had ever coined the term - "were" is actually superfluous 
> here. They live and breathe the technology and continuously refine and 
> test the equipment. If you were only to ask, they would be happy to tell 
> you how some of the technologies that powered the Internet began on the 
> worktable of some radio amateur or other. ICQ is just one of the examples 
> they offer. "CQ" is in fact a call taken from ham radio.
>
>      Srulik (Yisrael) Haramati (call number 4Z4JT) relates that even VoIP 
> (Voice over Internet Protocol) started on his table near the 
> communications equipment. It is not surprising that Haramati's son, Lior 
> Haramati, along with Alon Cohen, founded VocalTec Communications - the 
> pioneer in the field of telephony over the Internet.
>
>      When we move into the small meeting room, at the beginning of the 
> conversation Yisrael Haramati and Moshe Inger (call number 4ZIPF0) are 
> present and gradually the rest of the members trickle in. Inger explains 
> that the group's aim is mainly to conduct experiments in communications. 
> If they succeed, they move on. "Sometimes people ask me why this is needed 
> today. There are mobile phones, there is the Internet," related Michael 
> Barak (4X4KF), the editor of the Israel Amateur Radio Club bulletin. 
> "Anyone who asks that question doesn't understand what amateur radio is. 
> He thinks it's just talk. But the talk and the connecting are just to 
> prove to you that what you have one and what you have built and what you 
> have learned and all your knowledge about wave diffusion and electronics - 
> hey, it works." "Young people today prefer immediate satisfaction," says 
> Inger, and relates that in order to earn an amateur radio operator's 
> license you have to pass a Communications Ministry exam. By comparison, 
> what is easier than buying a computer and within minutes surfing on the 
> Internet?
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>      "It has buried us," comes a voice from the back of the room. Inger 
> hastens to reply: "It hasn't buried us. We use the Internet as a mediator 
> for purposes of our connections and developments."
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>      But Barak, too, says that the Internet has not entirely been a 
> blessing. "Amateur radio has shrunk all over the world - there is no doubt 
> about that," he says, adding bitterly, "The public in the world has become 
> lazier."
>
>      Inger does not place the blame on the Internet. According to him, 
> "The basic problem in this whole issue begins with the inadequate 
> education in this country. All the vocational schools where they taught 
> something about technical things - all of them have disappeared. There is 
> no vocational education these days. It is hard for us to [introduce] 
> ourselves to an audience that [isn't exposed to] us." But today, too, 
> there is a large group of people who love technology - for example 
> programming, Linux or tinkering with hardware. "How did they get to that? 
> How were they exposed to that?" demands Inger. "From computer games, from 
> that same Inter, Inter, Inter. They would have been exposed to amateur 
> radio had they attended a vocational school. But they are not exposed to 
> these things nowadays. The Israel Defense Forces has a big problem - it 
> doesn't have professionals."
>
>      When Inger talks about the adoption of the Internet as a tool for 
> amateur radio people, this is not idle talk. In the corner of the room 
> devoted to the broadcast station laden with equipment sits a server - 
> which creates an interface between the station and the Internet - and thus 
> the broadcast bounces back and forth between radio and the Web. Of course 
> there are also various forums and means of communication, but it doesn't 
> end there. There are a number of sites that enable registered amateurs to 
> make radio contact via the Internet (for example QsoNet: 
> www.qsonet.com/programs.html).
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>      Inger relates that the amateur community is very varied. "It ranges 
> from professional technical people all the way to barons and kings," he 
> says. "King Hussein of Jordan was a good friend of amateur radio. We were 
> invited there, we set up stations and we set up competitions from there."
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>      As for the costs, the amateurs explain there is no need to take out a 
> mortgage for their hobby. It is possible to set up a station for $400 or 
> $500. However, this is just the beginning. Recently an Israeli amateur 
> radio operator, an 80-year-old kibbutznik, bought equipment costing 
> $32,000.
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>      The aforementioned competitions include everything - from going out 
> on field days with their families to events where participants demonstrate 
> their latest experiments to international competitions at which Twitter 
> and Facebook novices could feel at home. At some of these events it's 
> necessary to connect with a certain number of people from a given country 
> or region, with each participant aiming to accumulate as many contacts as 
> possible.
>
>      These contacts, which transcend borders and oceans, also succeeded in 
> days gone by in penetrating even the Cold War Iron Curtain, says Marek 
> Stern (4x4ky), who immigrated to Israel from Lithuania at the start of the 
> 1970s. According to him, after the Six-Day War a boycott was imposed on 
> Israeli ham radio operators by operators in the Communist bloc and some 
> people who nevertheless tried to connect were cut off. Still, he continued 
> to broadcast and the risky hobby helped him stay in touch with relatives 
> in Israel. When he dismantled his station prior to immigrating, his 
> relatives worried that something had happened to him; the next time they 
> spoke to him he had already appeared on their doorstep. Twenty years 
> later, Stern helped absorb the radio hams who arrived here from the former 
> Soviet Union in the big wave of immigration at the beginning of the 1990s.
>
>      Simon Klein (4X6XN) relates that during the various stages of the 
> fall of the Iron Curtain, ham radio operators helped to make contact - for 
> example, with Israeli students studying in Romania and with whom 
> communications had been cut off during the revolt against the dictator 
> Nicolae Ceausescu. A connection with Arab countries also exists, although 
> in many cases it is difficult to get an answer from hams in the Arab 
> world. Nonetheless, when delegations from Arab countries came and asked 
> for help so they could enter the West Bank or the Gaza Strip and broadcast 
> from there, the amateur operators in Israel pitched in unhesitatingly.
>
>      They are also always happy to help the Israel Defense Forces or the 
> Magen David Adom medical rescue service and have many stories about 
> connecting under difficult conditions - from the Yom Kippur War to the 
> tsunami that slammed Asia. "Wherever there is an amateur radio operator, 
> there's a connection, always," says Haramati.
>
>      And here the advantage of this seemingly obsolete technology becomes 
> clear, an advantage not lost on rescue organizations and security forces. 
> Ohad Shaked, head of the earthquake unit at Magen David Adom, explains 
> that amateur radio as a means of communication has the highest survival 
> rate and in may cases hams get the information about disasters, in other 
> countries as well, before the governments understand what has happened.
>
>      Shaked relates that not long ago he made contact with the hams and 
> together they came up with a plan for spreading amateur radio people 
> around the country in the event of an emergency, for example an 
> earthquake. "We know that in the first days there will be no 
> communications," says Shaked. "We need them in order to get a picture of 
> the situation and that way as an organization we will know where the 
> gravest problems are."
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>      Apart from that, the amateur radio operators will have to continue to 
> help making alternative contact when the land line and mobile telephone 
> systems break down, whether because of direct hits or because of overload. 
> "They are amateurs but not amateurish, as one of them said to me," notes 
> Shaked. "These are very serious guys. They are very highly motivated to 
> help in times of emergency as well as ordinary times. I get the impression 
> that they understand what their purpose is."