The Sovereign Order of Malta is not a "standard" DX location and the report is not "standard" either. Instead of flight, boat trip, landing, unloading and building up this report has a non-standard (interview) format. Questions by PB2T and answers by IZ4AKS

Q. Can you tell me about the Order it's goal(s), who can be a member etc.

A. The Order of Malta is one of the few Orders created in the Middle Ages and still active today. It is also the only one that is at the same time religious and sovereign. This is due to the fact that most of the other Orders of chivalry lacked the hospitaller function which characterises the Order of Malta, so they disappeared as soon as the military purposes that represented the reasons for their existence ceased.

The Order of Malta works in the field of medical and social care and humanitarian aid, in over 120 countries, supported by the diplomatic relations it currently has with 99 nations. The Order also runs hospitals, medical centres, day hospitals, nursing homes for the elderly and the disabled, and special centres for the terminally ill . In many countries the Order's volunteer corps provide first aid, social services, emergency and humanitarian interventions.

Malteser International, the Order’s worldwide relief service, works in the front line in natural disasters and armed conflicts.

The knighthood nature explains and justifies the maintenance of the noble nature of the Order, as most of its Religious Knights came from chivalrous and noble Christian families. Today the majority of Knights belong to all classes of society. The members of the Order may be defined as Catholics enlivened by altruistic nobleness of spirit and behaviour. All Knights must meet the traditional requirement for the bestowing of knighthood: distinguish themselves for special virtues. The knighthood nature of the Order has kept its moral value, characterised by the spirit of service, sacrifice and discipline of today's Knights. Battles are no longer fought with swords, but with the peaceful tools of the fight against disease, poverty, social isolation and intolerance, as well as the defence and promotion of the Roman Catholic faith.

Q. You would not expect the Order of Malta in Italy. How did it get there an please tell us more about the location

A. Yes! It is a very long story. A lot of hams have the antennas beamed towards the island of Malta during our activities and I think it can be useful to know something about the story of the Order. The birth of the Order dates back to around 1048. Merchants from the ancient Marine Republic of Amalfi obtained from the Caliph of Egypt the authorisation to build a church, convent and hospital in Jerusalem, to care for pilgrims of any religious faith or race. The Order of St.John of Jerusalem - the monastic community that ran the hospital for the pilgrims in the Holy Land - became independent under the guidance of its founder, Blessed Gérard. The constitution of the Kingdom of Jerusalem regarding the crusades obliged the Order to take on the military defence of the sick, the pilgrims and the territories that the crusaders had conquered from the Moslems. The Order thus added the task of defending the faith to that of its hospitaller mission.

During their eventful nine century they change a lot of places: Jerusalem, Cyprus, Rhodes. Only in 1530 the Order took possession of the Island of Malta, granted to the Order by Emperor Charles V with the approval of Pope Clement VII.
In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the island for its strategic value during his Egyptian campaign. Because of the Order’s Rule prohibiting them to raise weapons against other Christians, the knights were forced to leave Malta. Although the sovereign rights of the Order in the island of Malta had been reaffirmed by the Treaty of Amiens (1802), the Order has never been able to return to Malta. After having temporarily resided in Messina, Catania and Ferrara, in 1834 the Order settled definitively in Rome, where it owns, with extraterritoriality status, the Magistral Palace in Via Condotti 68 (near Piazza di Spagna) and the Magistral Villa on the Aventine Hill, the place for all the hamradio activities.


At the first time, We evaluated the Magistral Palace in Condotti Street, but the location offers a lot of logistic troubles that encourage us to choose the Villa on the Aventine Hill.


The Villa of “Santa Maria del Priorato” is a neoclassical complex of buildings belonging to the Knights of Malta is the work of Giovan Battista Piranesi. Albericus II was the first to establish a courtly rule in Rome and an abbey was founded in the 10th century in the palace that his family had built on the Aventine Hill. This abbey was given to the Benedictine Monks in the 12th century and then, later, to the order of Templars. The building became the property of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in 1312 and today the headquarters of its priorate are there. In the Villa You will find the famous portal through whose lock you can see St. Peter's dome. The Villa has a very nice garden that can be used to build the set up, despite the space that is not too much.


Q. Who can operate form there? Do you have to be a knight (or is it member) in the order?

A. The ARRL Awards Committee accepted the recommendation of the DX Advisory Committee to add the Sovereign Military Order Of Malta to the DXCC list of Countries on 29th September 1981.


Since 1981, everybody with a valid 1A-licence and an entrance agreement with the Order of Malta can operate from there! To obtain these papers is extremely difficult, especially for the non-members.

Q. Who were the operators. Please give a brief a description of each with their DX-experience

A. We were 21 operators with contesting background. The team was composed by friends with dx experience and it was divided into three main groups: 1A3A Contest, 1A4A HF activity and 1A4A VHF & UP. All the operators were focused on their own targets.
For the VHF & Up we have IZ4GWE Michele, IZ4FTE Luigi and IW0BET Giovanni who are experts on 2 and 6 meters operation. Thanks to their effort, We were active also on the brand-new 4 meters band
The operations on the HF were only during free time (not too much because of the test of the equipments). There was a valid team of operators available and ready to manage huge pileups: HV5PUL Luca (IW0DJB), IK5ZGY William, IZ0EIK Erica (the YL of the team) and W9AEB Tom.
W9AEB has a very good Dx career. He transmitted from W9AEB/VP9 - Bermuda, W9AEB/TG7 - Guatemala, W9AEB/PJ2 - Curacao, W9AEB/VP2 - Virgin Gorda, P40Z - Aruba, HF0POL - South Shetland, HV5PUL - Vatican.

For our main target, We choose the best contesters who already worked with us before, in order to better manage the relationship with the participants. We don't like to have surprises like bad tempers, problematical people and other troubles like these during the activity. That is why I prefer to have with me well-known friends. A great part of them came from the new born D4C contest station in Cape Verde, but we had also members from the local contester community and from Andorra-C3.

The contest operators were: C31CT Salvador,CT1DVV Antonio,CT1ESV Antonio, I4UFH Fabio, IK0OER Stefano, IK2NCJ Luca, IK8UND Salvatore, IV3SKB Andrea, IZ0BTV Simone, IZ4AKS Giorgio, IZ4DPV Massimo, IZ8CCW Antonio, IZ8FWN Pietro and YL2KL Girts.



Q. Tell me about the station itself: antennas and equipment. Is this permanently installed?

A. The Villa is a jewel in the middle of Rome. During the 80’s there was a 3 element 10-15-20 but was removed for aesthetic reasons. At the moment there is no chance to leave a permanent setup. Remember that the Villa is also an Embassy…

All of our hardware was carried and shipped by us. The material weighted around 700 Kg and was brought using cars and vans to Rome. All the goods had already been tested in the weeks right before the contest.


Finally, after more than 8 weeks of hard work the setup was composed by:

10m --> 4 elem. Yagi,
15m --> 3 elem. Yagi,
20m --> 3 elem. Yagi,
40m --> 2 elem. Yagi + Loop home made,
80m --> vertical full site. Yagi ,
160 --> dipole home made , K9AY + N.1 B.O.G. beaming USA,
WARC --> Cushcraft R7 and a rotative dipole 12/18/30m,
6m --> 2 elem. Yagi,
4m --> 5 elem. Yagi,
2m --> 16 elem. Yagi

The RTX were all Icom mainly 781's (just one Yaesu FT1000), with some linear amplifier as Acom 1000 and similar. To reduce the interference, We used Dunestar and YT6A filters (really good!).


Finally We had 6 station in the bands of the contest, 1 in WARC Bands, and 2 in VHF&Up running simultaneously. Looking the picture of the 2 element for the 40m at 20 meters on the tow car, I really think that it was the best set up installed at the Order of Malta since 1981!

Q. how many QSO's (breakdown per band) did you make inside and outside the contest

A. During the global 10 days of activity 2007 We made more than 12184 QSO as 1A3A and more than 44000 as 1A4A. At the bottom of solar cycle, obtaining the 19% of QSO with the USA is a very good performance.


We always concentrated our activity to DX call-sings but the presence of signals over 9 from Europe cause us some trouble.
For the contest session We have always had a very strong European pileup and sometimes good conditions beaming USA, but We were jammed and bothered for 20 hours by some Romans with rumours and vulgarity on all bands. That why We lost time in sudden QSYs. No comment about that: well known guys…It always happens when someone transmits from the Vatican: the same story.


Finally, this is our declared:

Contest : CQ World Wide DX Contest
Callsign : 1A3A
Mode : PHONE
Category : Multi Operator - Multi Transmitter (MM)
Overlay : ---
Band(s) : All bands (AB)
Class : High Power (HP)
Zone/State/... : 15
Locator :
Operating time : 48h00
BAND QSO CQ DXC DUP POINTS AVG
--------------------------------------
160 668 7 62 32 698 1.04
80 1422 17 91 52 1630 1.15
40 3032 31 120 142 4496 1.48
20 3408 37 147 104 5524 1.62
15 2424 33 141 76 4466 1.84
10 1230 19 86 19 1442 1.17
--------------------------------------
TOTAL 12184 144 647 425 18256 1.50
======================================
TOTAL SCORE : 14 440 496

More photos on : http://www.flickr.com/photos/iz4aks/sets/

Q. Do you have any future plans

A. There are different tasks to manage. The team of D4C will focus on their main target: installing the ultimate setup of the station in Cape Verde. The other team members are planning some DXpeditions and some other activities…
Concerning the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, We have a very good relationship with them and We will be on the air in the future from Aventine Hill. Stay tuned!

Q. We are happy that you decided to answer buro QSL's. Can you tell more about your QSL policy (and the change in policy).

When You explain to someone what is Hamradio, it is much easier to say: "follow me to my station and check it out"…but this is not always possible. It was surely very difficult to explain the Order of Malta what is the real interest for a most wanted country as 1A was. Collecting stamps and postcards is something You can use as a metaphor. It is much easier to show the amount of QSL cards and say: "These are the cards received this week: there are 1500 of them". This is a concept that can be assimilated by everybody. But to gain the effect You must receive the cards quickly, just a few days after the activity.


That’s why we decided for the via direct cards. We want to make the Order of Malta really conscious about the high requests of contacts from world wide.

Achieved this target, it was normal to operate via the BURO as we have always done in the past.
The QSL card is available via IZ4DPV that is our QSL manager.

Q. Maybe something on charity projects under hand and the contribution the amateur community can make

A. The 1A4A license was issued as part of a fund raising campaign for the construction of a school for girls in South Sudan. We are pleased to announce that because of your generosity we were able to donate $10,000 for the project just during the first winter activity. Because this amount is only 60% of the total necessary to complete the work, we would like to continue this support initiative in an effort to fully fund this project. The girls of Rumbeck are anxiously awaiting the opening of their new school.


These students are so hungry for an education that many will voluntarily repeat the first and second grade in a more structured environment in their new school. There is no better way to ensure a better life for these girls than help provide them with the tools of a good education.

We are planning to make a trip to Rumbek , probably during 2008, and we are trying to install hamradio equipments there. But We want to be sure to be safe and now We are only evaluating this. Every donation even the smallest one(money or materials as antenna and radios) will be greatly appreciated (info: 1a4a@1a4a.org). Thank you for your support in this project of charity and thanks to EUDXF for everything is doing for developing the ham spirit worldwide.

The 1A4A license was issued as part of a fund raising campaign for the construction of a school for girls in South Sudan. We are pleased to announce that because of your generosity we were able to donate $10,000 for the project. [Please visit our web site to view pictures of the construction work in progress.] Because this amount is only 60% of the total necessary to complete the work, we would like to continue this support initiative in an effort to fully fund this project. The girls of Rumbeck are anxiously awaiting the opening of their new school.
These students are so hungry for an education that many will voluntarily repeat the first and second grade in a more structured environment in their new school. There is no better way to insure a better life for these girls than help provide them with the tools of a good education. Every donation even the smallest will be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your support.
For Italians only: click on the link to help Rumbek

We had already have activated five stations at the same time. Now acvive 24h/day.
We also updated the photo folder. Take a tour into the antenna park of 1A4A clicking here

We are active now with 2 stations. Other active rtx will be installed in the afternoon.

The propagation previsions were made possible with the research provided by I4UFH. Fabio is using the software called "WinCAP Wizard". It is the most powerful HF Communications Analysis Prediction package ever developed.
WinCAP Wizard manages an enormous amount of data with a state-of-the-art database and provides numerous unique and innovative "views" of VOACAP-propagation-prediction information, it is a prime software application specifically developed to address the needs of amateur radio operators.
Here You can find the forecast helping to contact us during the CQ World Wide SSB 2007.
Click on each band to drill down.
10 mts - 28 Mhz
15 mts - 21 Mhz
20 mts - 14 Mhz
40 mts - 7 Mhz
80 mts - 3,5 Mhz

New filters will be shipped to 1A and will be available from the beginning of the activity.
A new technology, with the circuits of YT1NT, makes these filters very reliable and best performers.
The team of 1A3A will use the new YT6A band pass filters after each amplifier to reduce interference between stations even more.

During the operation of October 2007, the station with the callsing 1A4A will be active on 70 MHz and 144 MHz, SSB, CW, FM and WSJT. The operation will be mainly focused on 4 meters band.
The frequencies will be: 70.200 SSB – CW; 70.300 FM; 70.295 Digital modes
1A4A will be in these bands on October 25th, 26th and 27th. More info will added soon in this website.

The Metro DX Club, W9TY, was founded in 1980 in an effort to bring together those in the DX community around the southwest metropolitan area of Chicago. The base has broadened to include some prominent DXers from across the USA. DX and contesting have been in the forefront of our activities. Our organization is an ARRL Affiliated Club; works in local BURO operations, and does card checking for ARRL certificate programs.
Several of our club members have participated in major DXpeditions in recent years.
Those include BS7H Scarborough Reef, XT2C Burkina Faso, 3Y0X Peter I, Ducie, Heard, and Chatham Island.
Now, one of our members, Tom W9AEB, is on the team participating in the 1A3A operation. We praise and support the fine work of The Sovereign Military Order of Malta, both in the promotion of amateur radio and more importantly, its great humanitarian projects.

73, Bob Adamitis, K9MDO
President, Metro DX Club