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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday June 3rd 2001


IRTS AGM 2001

The following are the committee members for the coming year. President Dave EI4BZ, Vice President John EI7IQ Elected members: Brendan EI3GV, Joe EI3IX, Sean EI4GK, Peter EI4HX, Steve EI5DD, Paul EI5DI, Paul EI6FE, Noel EI6HW, John EI6IR, Sean EI7CD and Mark EI7IS.

A number of awards and trophies were presented at the AGM among these the prestigious IRTS Y2K Club Prize went to the Mayo Radio Experimenters Network for their contribution to amateur radio and the society throughout the year.

The EI7IQ National 6 Meter Shield was awarded to C. Coughlin EI5FK. The IRTS 2 Meter Counties Spring contest 2000 (FM only) went to EI0CZ and the IRTS 2 Meter Counties Autumn contest 2000 (FM Only) went to EI7GY. The IRTS DX Trophy IOTA 2000 Single Op went to EI7GL and the IRTS Hal Hodgins Trophy IOTA 2000 CW was awarded to EI8GP. More awards will be announced in next weeks news.

Under any other business, there was discussion from members on various aspects of the society and the hobby, most notable was the discontent felt by many members over the current practices and inefficiencies of the ODTR, particularly in the area of license issuing.

The first meeting of the new IRTS Committee will be held on Saturday next at 11.00 a.m. in the Shamrock Hotel in Athlone. This is probably the most important meeting of the year as the main item on the agenda is the allocation of jobs for the coming year. Clubs are reminded that they may send a representative to IRTS Committee meetings. Clubs should read rule 16 on page 25 of the current year book which outlines the procedures for such representation.


Fingal Radio Club EI2FRC

The Telford Radio Rally takes place this year on Sunday 2nd September 2001. The rally will be in the exhibition area at the Air Museum in RAF Cosford in Shropshire, England. This large venue holds many interesting exhibits as well as the radio interest.

The Fingal Radio Rally bus will depart on the morning of Saturday 1st September on the Irish Ferries new super ferry 'The Ulysses', from Dublin Port. As on previous trips the club will stay overnight in Broseley, near the famous Telford Bridge. The price of the trip includes return from Dublin; evening dinner, bed and breakfast in Broseley and a meal stop on the way back to Holyhead and entrance to the show and Air Museum.

The trip is estimated to cost about £145.00 per person. More accurate details can be received from the trip organiser Chris Yeates EI7AAB at QTHR, at the club on any Monday night or telephone 01-8215145 in the evenings. If you have Internet access you can contact the club via e-mail at fingalradio@hotmail.com.


DX News

Chris, G3WOS who was due to operate from the Falkland Islands as VP8DPL has had to cancel the operation due to work commitments.


Ten Metre Beacon

The Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation has recently granted permission for a 10 metre beacon to be established in EI. The licence is initially for 3 months on a "non interference" basis after which time a permanent licence will be issued if all is satisfactory.

Operating on 28.209 MHz (Mode A1A), the beacon using the callsign EI0TEN is capable of 25 watts but will run initially on 5 watts for the "bedding in" period and will operate using a dipole antenna for approximately six weeks. Howevever, after this time the beacon will use 4 x phased 1/4 wave verticals beaming NW, NE, SE, SW. QSL to EI4HQ via buro.


Finland

This year the Annual Summer Camp of the Finnish Radio Amateur League will take place between July 5th and 8th. Called Hietahami 2001, the camp is hosted by the University of Oulu Radio Club, OH8TA. The site is located close to the centre of Oulu, which can be reached by train, plane or bus. More information is available at oh8ta.oulu.fi/hietahami/en/


AO-40 News

AMSAT engineers recently activated the LEILA device on AO-40 for tests. The purpose of this is when a station that is too strong fails to lower power, LEILA notches out the offender's uplink and sends the siren signal to the downlink for about five seconds. LEILA can notch out five signals at a time and ground controllers will probably will leave LEILA switched on continuously.


Predicting Propagation

A new software program called W6ELProp claims that it can predict ionospheric sky-wave propagation between any two locations on the earth on frequencies between 3 and 30 MHz. W6ELProp is freeware and is available from www.qsl.net/w6elprop/


5 WPM Morse in Canada

Canada has made the 5 WPM Morse requirement official. Canadian Basic operators with 5 WPM credit now have full HF Amateur Radio privileges. Effective since the 19th of May, Industry Canada has amended the Technical Requirements for the test. This grants full operating privileges in all Amateur Radio frequency bands below 30 MHz to operators holding the Basic plus 5 WPM Morse code qualification.


Items for inclusion in Echo Ireland should be forwarded to Dave Moore EI4BZ at 021-4353853 in the evenings or at 021-4823172 during office hours. Items can be submitted to Dave by e-mail at ei4bz@eircom.net and you can fax him at 021-4354113.


Items for inclusion in the Radio News should be forwarded to Mark Wall EI7IS at QTHR or via e-mail to ei7is@qsl.net or cyberis@e-merge.ie. Items can also be sent to Mark over the phone at 087-6302026.

News can also be submitted via e-mail to news@irts.ie for automatic forwarding to both news services

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