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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday August 25th 2002


International Space Station

Frequencies for the International Space Station are as follows: Region 1 Voice uplink 145.200 MHz FM & downlink 145.800 MHz FM. Packet uplink is 145.990 MHz FM & downlink 145.800 MHz FM.

In order to maximise the number of stations accessing RS0ISS on packet, Radio Amateurs are encouraged to use UNPROTO and digipeat one line messages as opposed to connecting to the mailbox. Stations without APRS software such as UISS and UI-View can have their UNPROTO packets APRS formatted by placing the greater than symbol before the maidenhead locator followed by a forward slash and dash and a space before the message (i.e. >IO63??/- Your Message). Further information regarding ISS packet operations can be obtained from www.ariss.net and downstream links.

The ARISS Europe QSL Bureau handles QSL cards confirming ARISS contacts with amateur radio stations in the European region. Stations seeking a QSL card for packet and voice operations should forward a documented request, 2 IRC's and a self addressed envelope by postal mail to; AMSAT-France, 14 bis, rue des Gourlis, 92500 Rueil Malmaison FRANCE.

The ARISS Europe QSL Manager will deliver your ARISS QSL card by direct mail. The QSL card to be issued by the Union of Belgian Amateurs will only be in respect of the expedition crewed by Frank De Winne, ON1DWN who will join the ISS at the end of October.


Fingal Radio Club

Fingal Radio Club will be running a mini bus to the Llandudno Rally on Saturday November the 2nd returning on Sunday November the 3rd. The boat will leave Dun Laoighre on Saturday at 06.30 to arrive in Llandudno at approximately 10 a.m. The trip will include an overnight stay in a good hotel with breakfast on the Sunday morning. The group will be leaving Llandudno around midday on the Sunday arriving in Dun Laoighre mid afternoon. The cost will be €130 (euro) inclusive of all transfers and the Bed and Breakfast. Four Places remain. Book early as the places are expected to be taken up immediately. Please phone Liam Murphy EI3HK at 01-8316266 or 087-2521542.


Inishkea Island trip

EI3IX & Martin Conway (SWL) made the trip to Inishkea south island to activate the WAI grid squares F51 & F52 on Sunday the 4th of August. The final decision to sail on Sunday was taken at 2030 hrs the Saturday night before! Four previous attempts to get to this Island had failed due to the bad weather experienced earlier in the year. While both squares were worked on HF, from a VHF/UHF point of view, the trip was a disaster. Unfortunately as things worked out there was no time to notify experimenters in advance of the sailing, this no doubt contributed to the lack of operators within VHF/UHF range to work on the day. Using a Yaesu FT100, and running 50 Watts into a Maspro 10 element Yagi for 2 meters, nothing was heard or worked from F52. Along with that none of the western-based 2 metre repeaters could be accessed (Mayo, Galway or Limerick). The situation was the same on 4 metres & 70 cm.


6 metres news

The 6-metre sporadic-E season this year has been a little disappointing compared to last year, openings seem to be rarer and shorter. Maybe we were a little spoiled with the excellent F2 season and thought a bumper sporadic-E season would follow. However there are a number of experimenters who have worked 200+ maidenhead grid squares so far this year.


70 cm news

Could everyone who participated in the July, Sunday's 70-cm activity towards the "Slievenamon Perpetual Trophy" please send in their logs to the Contest Manager, Noel Walsh at ei2jc@hotmail.com before the 31st of August. Anyone who has had even only one 70-cm contact during the month of July should send Noel a log in support of this activity Trophy.


Squares table 2002

The squares table has been up and running again this year, please send in your maidenhead scores if you are an active VHF operator on 2 meters, 4 meters, 6 meters, 70 cm, 23 cm or above. The squares table is published in each edition of Echo Ireland. The up to date scores can be found on EI7GL's web page at www.qsl.net/ei7gl under the heading Squares table 2002.


EI0HQ in IARU HF Championships 2002

This year the Society used the special callsign EI0HQ in the IARU HF Championships held on the 13th and 14th of July. National Society Headquarter Stations are counted as multipliers in this contest and are allowed to operate multi-multi style with a station permissible on each band and mode.

As the decision to participate was left too late, only some of the band/modes were operated. Paul EI5DI operated on 10 metres CW while Declan EI9HQ was on 10m SSB. Jim EI8GS was on 15 Metres SSB and Thos EI2JD and Mark EI9IB were responsible for SSB on 20 Metres. Dave EI4BZ looked after 20 Metres CW and Neil EI3JE covered both 40 and 80 Metres SSB. Paul EI5DI was on 40 Metres CW while Jerry EI6BT looked after CW on 80 Metres. Over 4,000 QSO's were made and we look forward to a bigger and better effort next year.


Cork Radio Club

The Cork Radio Club Rally will take place on the 29th of September in the Blarney Park Hotel. For information, contact Con EI7DJB or Dick at 021-4545154.


Contests

Congratulations to Paul EI5DI, who came third in the mixed mode, low power DX section of the 2001 ARRL 10 metre contest, held in December 2001. Paul had 1482 QSO's and 200 multipliers, and was one of only three operators in that section with a score of more than one million points. There were six other entries from EI, as follows: EI2JC with 48,048 points, EI4DW with 489,808 points, EI7DJ with 485,676 points, EI4CF with 120,904 points, EI8IR with 480,912 points and EI8GS with 442,260 points.

EI6ARB has won the EI/GI Trophy Clock, which is sponsored by Rob Mannion for this year's 144 MHz PW QRP Contest.


Items for inclusion in Echo Ireland should be forwarded to Dave Moore EI4BZ at 021-4883555. Items can also be submitted to Dave by e-mail at ei4bz@eircom.net.


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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