Arutz 2000 Key Dates

Arutz 2000 - Key Dates

March 1995	Arutz 2000 started broadcasts as a landbased pirate, but was repeatedly raided by the authorities so the backers raised funds to purchase a former lightship from Britain, to become an offshore base for the station.
Summer 1995	Conversion work took place on the former lightship (LV3) throughout the summer of 1995 in a Portsmouth shipyard, but came to a halt towards the end of the year when resources apparently ran short

1995

1996

12th January 1996	British Department of Trade and Industry officials raided the ship in Portsmouth and confiscated sections of aerial mast which had been stored on the deck awaiting erection. Following the raid, and fearing that the ship herself may soon be impounded, the owners arranged for the King David to be towed from Britain by the tug Tamar,(which they had also purchased).
Mid January 1996	Shortly after the ship was towed out of Portsmouth Arutz 2000 (as a landbased pirate), started making references on-air about the impending arrival of its new radio ship en-route from Britain.
27th January 1996	The station started making emergency appeals for financial donations to 'rescue and salvage' its ship which had got into difficulties at sea.
30th January 1996	After crossing the Bay of Biscay problems were experienced with the towing cable and both ships had to enter port in Lisbon for repairs.
early spring 1996	Reports indicated that the King David had reached Cyprus.
3rd May 1996	The Arutz 2000 land based transmitter site in south Tel Aviv was raided by Israeli police
10th May 1996	The station announced that they were broadcasting from the King David, although this was not correct. During the day they repeatedly asked for donations to replace equipment that had been confiscated in earlier raids, and were later raided again by Israeli police.
13th May 1996	Arutz 2000 resumed broadcasts from their land based transmitter and were still asking for donations to replace confiscated equipment. They also started announcing that the King David had arrived off the coast of Ashdod.
20th May 1996	Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport was forced to close for a couple of hours due to serious interference from a pirate radio station in the Tel Aviv area and as a result most of the land based stations surrounding Tel Aviv, including Arutz 2000 temporarily closed down.
end of May 1996	It was reported that the King David was now anchored some 15 miles off the coast of Israel.
28th August 1996	Test broadcasts for Arutz 2000 from the King David eventually started.
29th August 1996	The test broadcasts from the King David stopped suddenly.
20th October 1996	Test broadcasts from the King David resumed, but the signal was very weak.
17th December 1996	Regular broadcasts for Arutz 2000 from the King David began, although the signal was still very weak.
late December 1996	Arutz 2000 changed frequency for a few days to 101.8 Mhz .

14th March 1995 American astronaut Norman Thagard became the first American to enter space on board a Russian rocket.

14th January 1996 Several thousand government, Serb and Croat troops withdrew from their front-line trenches and bunkers across central and northeastern Bosnia, beating a deadline to create buffer zones.

29th January 1996 French President Jacques Chirac ordered an early end to underground nuclear tests in the South Pacific.

5th May 1996

Israel and the Palestinians began the final stage of their peace talks in Taba, Egypt.

10th May 1996

A blizzard suddenly erupted on Mt. Everest and led to the death of 8 climbers descending from 29,028 foot summit.

22nd May 1996

Iraq reached an agreement with the UN to sell $2 billion in oil for 180 days to buy food and medicine.

27th August 1996 Israeli police demolished a youth centre in Jerusalem’s Old City saying that it was illegally built with money from Arafat’s Palestinian Authority.

16th December 1996

The US, EU and other countries agreed a $2.2 billion package of economic and military assistance to Lebanon.