The Italian Job E44M in Palestine

A frustrating few days for me, the desk cleared of all incoming QSL cards and some time over last weekend to work a “new one” Palestine E44M, but despite hours of tactical calling, firing up and down the split frequencies to find where they were taking most calls and trying to find a clear window in which to be heard from my small station in Middle England. It just wasn’t to be, the pile ups were huge. I have to say I think it was quite a brave decision to go to Palestine at a time when Israel are at war in the Gaza Strip. I guess for this reason the wire antennas that are being used seem rather low which would account for the low signals that I was hearing. One main problem for me was that Italy are a very good hop away from E4 and were always going to be a 5/9 both ways for our Italian Amateurs, it was going to be a game of patience, in fact on two occasions both on 20m and 17m after waiting for the “E44M listening up 5 to 10” again I replied… “Mike Zero Uniform Romeo X-ray” I heard “URX again” so I gave my call but on both occasions my calls weren’t heard and an Italian had called over me to get that elusive log entry.

Despondent but NOT beaten I realised that my chance was gone as I had a busy week at work coming up and I knew by the time I got home the band conditions would be dropping out.

Tuesday 14:44z: Home from work and my luck changed, E44M, weak but workable on 14.250 MHz, and few people were calling I called but they can’t hear me, I scan the split, where are they listening?… yes, here on 14.259 and they finally heard me. That magical reply “M0URX 5/9” Phew at last I made it, at least on one band! DXCC No 272 worked.

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