Amateur Radio

Ox
ChadHarris VP2ML
PO Box 4881
Santa Rosa CA 95402
ON THE AIR FROM LIBYA
Amat eur act ivit y from Libya
has been very scarce over the
past dozen years, with one exception.
In late 1986 and early
1987, Hebert Trz aska $P6AT
made more than 35,000 contacts
from this Nort h African spot.
His story is an inspiring example
o f the r esou rcefulness and
dedication of an active nxer.
and well retlects the true spirit of
furthering international goodwill
through OX.
First Sleps
Bert arrived in Libya in the fall of
1985, as guest of the Socialist
People 's libyan Arab Jamahirija
(SPlAJ), to leach in the electrical
engineering department 01 recently
erected Garyounis University,
in Benghazi. Bert 's first act
there was to apply for permission
to operate amateur radio equipment
. He reasoned that this was a
necessary part of his research into
electromagnetic susceptibility
(TVI and RFI) and propagation research
.
Fully nine months and many
inquiries later, Bert's amateur
permission came through . Unfortunately,
he couldn' t bring in
any radio gear at that time, nor get
hi s own gear shi p p e d from
Poland . Imagine the frustrat ion of
a DXer in Libya with a license but
no gear!
Typical ham resourcefulness
Number 28 on you, Feedback card
Hams Around the World
came into action. Bert searched
through the lab equipment at the
university and found an excellent
Rohde-Schwartz EK-Q70 receiver
met woutd cover the amateur
band s. The search for the transm
itter wa s mo re difficult. He
turned to various amateur radio
and OX foundations lor assistance
, but most wanted assurance
that the operatio n would
count lor OXCC before providing
gear. Bert finally located a transmitter
of sorts.
Gening on the Air
The umversuy's lab included
a Wavetek 178 signat generator
that could pump c ut as much
as 1 Watt, under ideal conditions.
Bert was able to squeeze only a
Ihird of a Watt out of the generator,
however, with his jury·
rigged antenna. He increased this
slig htly by feeding the antenna
through an attenuator. The bett er
impedance match of the attenuator
more than compensated
for the 3-dB attenuation, and he
was on the air with a half-watt into
the antenna!
The arrangement was far from
perfect. The antenna was hard to
tune and his operation posi tion
was surrounded by high-power
broadcast transmitters, which
swamped available impedancemeasuring
devices. Keying the rig
was yet another problem. Since it
took too long to reach a stable frequency.
Bert decided to key the
antenna circuit instead of keying
the frequency generator directly.
Bert resorted to tapping a banana
ptug into a socket to key his sig-
Photo A. Garyounls University in Benghazi, Libya. site of 5A0A ,
74 73 Amateur RadiO . January, 1988
nat. While continuing to scrounge
for parts to build a simple amplifier
or even a matching network , Bert
fired up this improvised station as
SA0Aon '4005 kHz on November
22, 1986, and logged G6Z0 for his
first OSO.
CRP Operat ion
Over the next three months,
Bert logged nearly 6,000 contacts
on every cont inent i n mor e
than 60 cnterent countries, The
firsl 2,000 OSOs were made
with h is makeshift " k eyer. "
Small wonder The OX Bulletin
reported at the lime thai Bert's
CW was " very slow, and often
stra nge!"
Gradually the amateur community
began to help out. DJ2BW
and OK1RV sent an electronic
keyer to Bert a t the e n d o f
January, and Bert's 0 50 rate
doubled. Then, fo llowing the
ARRL's acceptance of Berl's
5A0A operation for OXCC credit,
the fl edgl ing European OX
Foundation chipped in a Yaesu
FT-901D transc eiver. Lack of
rotor and cables, and difficulties
with cu stom s, however, foiled
an attempt to erect a meander
donated by the INOEXA. Bert
continued to use dipoles about
20 feet high for the rest of his
operation.
Observations on the Bands
Bert had lillie trouble working
Europe with his modest station.
Almost 29,000 of his 35,000 OSOs
were with European OXers. He
wo rked 3,700 North American
hams , and 2,300 Asians, but only
a handful of Oceania, South
American , and fellow African
amateurs.
Bert made a particular effort
to work as many stations a s
possible, but had to struggle
through much ORM. He co m-
pares the pileups with the queues
in meat shops in his native
Poland. But he hung in there,
and maintained an iron fist on the
p ileups . Bert kept contro l o f
the frequency by answering
questions only when asked during
a OSO, not answering obvious
questions (What country is SA?),
and not accepting many skecs
from other bands.
The usual OX " po lice men"
harassed his operation, particularly
because his OSL manager,
SP6BZ, was not listed in the latest
CallbOOk. He avoided list operations
with the single exceptio n
of Jim Smith VK9NS's net, which
he used to work Sou th PaCific
stations.
Nearly Pro blem Free
His only real operating problem
c ame fro m OXers seeki ng insurance
contacts through duplicated
OSOS on the same band
and mode. Each such insurance
contact reduced his chances of
giving out Libya as a New One.
Some DX ers called more than
10 times, and soon found themselves
o n Bert ' s bl ac k l i st.
" They'll find their wait for a SA0A
OSL to be a long one!" Bert says,
" Fortunately the list contains very
few call signs . Unfortunately. the
majority of them are well-known
Dx-men."
Bert' s o p e ra ti ng sche d u le
varied from day to day , but he
spent much of his free time on the
air, perched on his hard lab stool
in front of the rig. Sometimes
leaching pulled him away during
prime propagation, but his job
took precedence over the radio
activities. Still, he was success ful
at work ing enough srattons that he
could occasionally call CO and
get no respo nse. He took these
opportunities to try some other
bands, and work some SSB as
PhofOB, Berr Trzaska SP6RToperafing 5A0A.
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