On Monday, May 9th , 2011, FAIRS (Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service, Ltd.) held special event station in areas around the world to commemorate an important 20th Anniversary of the organization.
Directors and members fielded incoming amateur radio traffic over HF frequencies. The gathering “over the air waves” was informal and remarks were made about the Foundation and its goodwill activities over the years. Ham radio operators who were on frequency were invited as guests to help celebrate, and information was exchanged with each contact. Many of the inquisitive operators visited FAIRS on th web at www.fairs.org or viewed the streaming video to become familiar with the voices and personalities of FAIRS.
FAIRS (Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service, Ltd., a non-profit (501 (c)(3)) organization) has been “overcoming barriers and bringing people together” since 1991. It is the motto of FAIRS to build global friendship by amateur radio: to provide equipment and technologies for greater communication between individuals, communities and governments.
The directors, members (from the U.S. and many countries around the world), and volunteers have educated citizens in many parts of the world toward preparedness in the event of disaster, by the use of radio communication. FAIRS has been instrumental in the transport of hundreds thousands of dollars worth of medicines, supplies, and other aids to various areas in need.
Other FAIRS members around the world operated special event stations to celebrate as well; like in countries of the Eastern Caribbean like Dominica and in Europe.
FAIRS is well known internationally for its current activities, and historically for getting the first-ever amateur radio USAID grant ($25,000 back in the 90s) for “Ukrainian Digital Amateur Radio Network”, for organizing goodwill visits between the US and countries of former Soviet Union (now CIS), for ham radio workshops and Dxpedition to Bangladesh (1993 S21ZH-S21ZM), plus operations from China, Guayna and the Caribbean.
Victor Goncharsky of FAIRS Ukraine and director of European operations headed up a special HF and EME-MS VHF, DXpedition to Moldova (ER) May 10-17. Operators were Vlad ER/US8ZAL, Toly UY5HF and Victor ER/K1WE.
See the story by Victor, received via e-mail by FAIRS:
To celebrate the 20-th anniversary of FAIRS the team Victor US5WE/K1WE, Vlad US8ZAL, Toly UY5HF went to Moldova. Operating site Kagul, Moldova KN45CW Station Owners Toly ER5WU (father), Alex ER5GB (son), Oleg ER5CAA (son). The major goal was to activate Moldova on 144 MHz EME (Earth-Moon-Earth) and MS (Meteor Scatter) and on WARC bands (mainly 30 meters). The operation took place May 11-17, 2011.
DX-pedition totals:
åíå 144 – 78 QSO
MS 144 100 QSO
TROPO 144 – 40 QSO
Es 50 MHz 120 QSO
WARC bands (ER/K1WE) more then 1000 QSO.
The exact number will be known after putting the hand-written logs into logging software. The team’s goals included helping Moldavian hams in Kagul with putting up an EME station at ER5WU. We tried hard to tune the 4×16 DJ9BV long yagi and used it during our trip. We also made for Toly and family the 4 element DK7ZB yagi from available materials. While being in Kagul we were visited by some Moldavian hams ER1AN, ER1LW, ER5AE, ER5AL and had telephone conversations with ARM officials ER1DA and ER1FF. Our trip was certainly the successful one and we’re looking forward for more trips to ER.
