2 meters Under attack.

Being an active Ham on an all-year-round sunshine Mediterranean Island is for sure the dream of many people. I get this comment especially when I send QSLcards showing myself operating under an olive tree with the blue sea as a permanent background.

Nearly every contact is an international one and multipliers is a “natural phenomenon” during DXing. An ideal location for the HF “playground“ but a nightmare when it comes to VHF. Cyprus has been recently united with Europe. But the actual preparation started a decade ago. For some reason National telecommunications and strict Band-Plan was always a field where the government has paid attention and followed international standards.

During the winter months when VHF propagation is low, the “needle goes up” only on a “CQ CQ DX" or after a 5B4xx call. Most of us have the local chat frequency on one side of the dual band radio and the local repeater on the other, monitoring all day long. For sure it sounds too good to be true that is why everything ends up on May. The first symptoms start with the repeaters not responding, due to strong signals blocking the input frequency. Hours later a sea of signals flood the entire band. Propagation allows hundreds of pirate stations to break through resulting in paralyzing all ham activities. Signals from distant APRS digipeaters get buried under the noise, satellite beacons are impossible to hear, and local simplex chat needs to be done on high power. Once I was a kid every Sunday morning there was an English learning TV program called “Follow Me.“ It's the same on VHF only now there is no picture and it is the Arabic version.

I do not really want to open a one man “political“ issue with those specific countries, but again, it is not hard at all to figure out where they are coming from while experimenting with a direction finder or even a simple beam.

Or alternative check out: http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2001/05/30/3/?nc=1

The tools : Phone Patch systems capable of simplex/full duplex operation , the interface between radio and telephony. Some of them provide CW identification making

thinks even more complicate. Those devices do not have a specific frequency ( need to be linked with a radio ) therefore legal to trade even within EU with FCC Part 68 & Part 15 approved.

Complaints have been sent numerous times to related Amateur organizations but the result remained the same. Fellow hams including myself occasionally are forced to use a method which does not fall into the “ham radio spirit.” Fight “fire with fire.” 200 watts on a 16-element beam sending DTMF tones makes those Radiotelephones go crazy and then quit for awhile but only for awhile.

This is a desperate call and at the same time an invitation to the fellow amateurs located in the countries south East of Cyprus who can help create a better future for our Hobby.

Manos Manoli 5B4AFQ.