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Hal W8HC and Jerry K8OQL are happy to
confirm their return to Israel (4X) in
October for another CQWW Phone Contest from
the Holyland. This will be Hal's 6th
consecutive CQWW from 4X and Jerry's 4th!
In commemoration of Israel's 60th
Anniversary in 2008, they have been granted
permission to operate as 4XØC as a special
event/contest station from atop Israel's
historical
Masada National Park. Masada was built
during 37 BC to 31 BC by Herod the Great and
served as a "nearly" impenetrable stone
fortress and palace.
The site is located in the remote Judean
desert and is situated on a rhomboid-shaped
table-top plateau rising nearly 450 meters.
This contest location offers a breathtaking
panorama of the Dead Sea and Jordan's Moab
Mountains. Interestingly however, Masada's
actual elevation is near-sea level since the
Dead Sea below is over 400 meters below sea
level. Masada is also known
as the site of one of the largest mass
suicides in history when in 73 AD, 960
Jewish Zealots took their own life rather
than die at the hands of the Roman legions
that had breached the fortress walls. Hal
and Jerry will be hosted and joined by Ruben
4Z5FI for their M/S operation during the
contest. Direct QSLs to W8HC or via the
buro. All 4XØC QSOs will also be uploaded
to LOTW as in previous operations (4XØWV)
and Hal will QSL 100% via
GlobalQSL.com.
Additional information will be forthcoming
on this website. Stay Tuned....
Hal W8HC and Dave WA8WV at
2008 Dayton Hamvention®
Who is W8HC?
I received my initial ham
license at the age of 15 on October 6, 1967.
I was granted the callsign WN8ZAT, one of the first
two-year Novice tickets issued by the FCC
for the Amateur service. Up to
that time, I had been an avid short-wave
radio listener (SWL) for 3 or 4 years using
a borrowed Hallicrafters S-119K Sky Buddy
until my parents gave me a Heathkit GR-64
general coverage receiver kit for Christmas
in 1965. A longwire antenna rounded
out my "station" there in St. Albans,
West Virginia where I
spent countless hours logging foreign
broadcast stations and mailing them signal
reports so I could get their much-treasured QSL cards in return.
QSL cards are post card confirmations that
the actual reception took place as claimed.
In amateur radio, it is an acknowledgement
or receipt confirming a 2-way contact.
Back in the '60s, "Popular
Electronics" magazine offered SWL callsigns
for submitting confirmations with either 5
or 7 stations, I can't recall the exact
number. I do remember checking my mailbox
every day to see if I had received any QSLs.
Ultimately, I collected the required number
of cards and attained the SWL callsign
WPE8JEC
from the magazine. I
thought it
had a nice ring to it and I wrote it on
everything I owned.
 I
still have all of these QSL cards: Radio Sofia, Radio
Moscow, Radio Kiev, Radio Havana, Radio
Budapest, Voice of America, Radio Vatican,
Radio South Africa, to name a few. I
was getting so much mail from Cuba and
especially around the holidays I would get
postcards with caricatures of Castro on
them. My parents were actually beginning
to worry that the Feds would be knocking on
the door someday. The cold war was
still in the deep-freeze and I doubt there
were that many 14-year olds getting regular
mail from Havana and Moscow.
I think it was in my 8th
grade English class that I had to write my
first "research" paper. My topic---
Guglielmo Marconi, the "father" of radio and
my hero. He has been my hero ever
since.
For Christmas 1966, I got
a Knight T-60 transmitter and I was ready to put it on
the air when my ticket finally arrived in
the following fall. My ham-buddy
Eugene Hereford had received his
Novice call WN8YMF just a few months before me. Gene
had just missed
out on the two year ticket so, his
license was only good for one year. We
helped each other out a lot in terms of
learning more about our hobby. Gene
was a whiz on CW. Nobody
could make a straight key "sing" like Gene!
I lost
track of him until March of 2006 at the
Charleston, WV hamfest, when I met his widow
who was selling off Gene's equipment.
I did not know he had been living in
Charleston for the year up until his death
when he lost his life to cancer. I thought he was still living
somewhere in Florida. Looking back, he was my
Elmer.... I am just sorry we didn't
"connect" after he returned home to WV.
I held the General Class
call WB8ZFW until passing my Advanced Class
test and received the call- KC8FS. I kept
it for 14 for 15 years after getting my
Extra Class ticket. I received the
current 'vanity' callsign in August 2004.
DXing has been my passion
from the get-go but the bug bit hard in about
'88. From then, I was on a mission to the
top of the ARRL's DXCC Honor Roll which I
finally attained in 2005 with the VU4RBI
operation.
Although I don't contest
as much as I used to, I still like
participating in a couple every year,
primarily DX Phone contests. I just
don't have the stamina for a CW effort. My most
memorable contesting? CQWW with Dave WA8WV over
at Bob Morris' W4MYA multi/multi station in
VA. It's hard to beat operating legal limit
into stacks! But anytime operating
with Dave is fun. He's a machine!
I hope you enjoy the
website. I just wish I had more time to work
on it...
73 es DX,
Hal W8HC
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