[version francaise]

Lebanon will be hosting the Sixth Francophone Games, which will be held in Beirut from 27th of September to 6th of October 2009. The Radio Amateur of Lebanon (RAL) will be sponsoring a special event Amateur Radio Station “OD5F” from September 26 till October 31, 2009 commemorating the event.

The Francophone games are held every 4 years, with the participation of 3,000+ athletes, youths and artists from 56 French speaking countries and 14 observer countries. It is a popular sports and art festival.

QSLs will be handled by the RAL QSL bureau. RAL will have a special QSL card for the event.

If you like to participate or have more information on OD5F operation, please send an email to  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

You can also follow the games on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook .

Click here to see the related TV commercial in French or Arabic

OD5OT - Hassan's vacation in Lebanon was crowned with a gathering at Maysoun Restaurant on July 28, 2009. Among the Hams and SWLs who responded to the invitation are: OD5ET - Joe, OD5HP - Amin, OD5KM - George, OD5KU - Elie, OD5OT - Hassan, OD5PN - Jamil, OD5TE - Hani, OD5QB - George, OD5TX - Michel, OD5YL - Louisette and Eddy (SWL). Pictures from the event are available in the RAL Photo Album. Hassan is back in Dubai and will be missed among us.

The 2009 Ham Radio at Friedrichshafen, Germany, ended with official attendance figures at 17,400. RAL president OD5TE-Hani in his role as IARU Region 1 Executive committee member attended the Exhibition from June 26 to 28, 2009. The trip started with a stop in Zurich hosted by HB9JOE - Andy and HB9ELF - Yvonne that presented OD5TE with a Swiss callsign HB9ERL.

The trip included visits to HB9VC - Swissair Amateur Radio Club, HB5FE - Swiss Air Force Amateur Radio Club. HB9W meeting.

At the Ham Radio Exhibition in Friedrichshafen Dr. Larry Price - W4RA named President Emeritus of IARU and IARU Region 1 Monitoring System Coordinator DK2OM - Wolf received recognition for his outstanding contribution in the defense of the Amateur Radio spectrum.

More information are available on the IARU Region 1 Homepage.

Pictures from the trip are posted in the RAL Photo Gallery.

Radio Amateurs of Lebanon (RAL) in coordination with the Municipality of Zgharta activated  Ehden Natural Reserve on June 13-14, 2009 during the World Flora Fauna (WFF) GreenDays 2009 with a special callsign OD5WFF.

Participant included: KC2UHM - Dean, OD5KU - Elie, OD5RW - John, OD5SB - Rami, OD5TE - Hani, OD5YU - Sudad. The participants had a great time at the event operating all bands and testing various radios and antennas. Check the pictures from the event.

On the accasion of the World Amateur Radio Day, The International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 (IARU Region 1) unveiled a fully redesigned Homepage that offers a lot of functionalities and will allow various IARU Region 1 Working Groups to post and edit news.

The IARU Region 1 Homepage, also offers a forum  that brings the ham community together in discussions related to Amateur Radio.

IARU Region 1 page registration is open to all the Hams. Visit  www.iaru-r1.org and register today.