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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 29th January 2012


IRTS AGM & Rally 2012

The IRTS AGM, Annual Dinner and Rally this year is hosted by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society at the Fairways Hotel on the weekend of April 21st & 22nd 2012. Please keep your diaries free for this special event in our 80th Anniversary year celebrations. More details to follow.


EI80IRTS Certificate

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society was founded 1932 and we are proud to celebrate our 80th anniversary in 2012. As part of the celebrations the Society will be using the special callsign EI80IRTS. A special certificate, available to all amateurs and SWLs, is being offered to celebrate this occasion. Contact the special call EI80IRTS during the period of January 1st, 2012 to December 31st, 2012.

A very attractive certificate for working EI80IRTS is sponsored by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society, and details can be seen at www.ei7dar.com/ei80irts.html


IOTA Contest Results

Provisional results of the 2011 Islands On The Air contest have now been published. Despite low sun-spots levels, the contest organisers received over 2,300 logs - the highest number yet - covering 632,000 QSOs and sufficient to enable them to adjudicate 75% of all QSOs.

The highest scoring station in the contest was the Bristol Contest Group (GJ6YB) who operated from Jersey and achieved a score of just under 15 million points from over 3,300 QSOs. The Bristol Contest Group were also the IOTA contest winners in 2010.

Irish stations submitted 21 contest logs and one check log. The full provisional results for EI and GI stations are on the IRTS web site - see Contest Results page or the link on the home page. The highest score was achieved by the EI/GI group on Rathlin Island, with a total of 2.7 million points from 1,606 QSOs. Other groups had higher QSO numbers, but the Rathlin group had a better mix of multipliers and island stations. There are also some excellent results from stations in the Single-Operator categories.

The IOTA contest is one of the best supported contests in Ireland. The 2012 contest takes place on 28th / 29th July. The contest organisers have indicated that there will be a number of significant rule changes in 2012, notably to the scoring to emphasise island QSOs and, for the same reason, there will no longer be a World multi-op category as they are anxious to refocus the contest on working islands rather than building points through non-island stations working other non-island stations.


85th Armenian Anniversary

In honour of the 85th anniversary of DOSAAF of Armenia from January 21 to February 1, radio amateurs of Armenia will work using call sign of a special prefix EK85. QSL cards for QSOs with special stations should be send to the address of QSL-manager EK7DX. ( www.qrz.com )

The electronic version of the diploma "85 years of DOSAAF of Armenia" shall be issued for the QSOs and SWLs with special stations on different bands, including WARC bands, using different types of modulation CW, SSB and Digital. For obtaining a diploma you have to dial 5 QSO / SWL. Applications must be mailed to the address of the manager: ek7dx /at/yahoo / dot/ com


Declan EI9HQ

Declan will be out on Sunday 12th February on a run to Kilkenny starting around 0930 in WAI Square Oscar22. He will be on 7.170mhz. Anyone looking for squares from this route please email before 10th February at ei9hq/ at/ O2/ dot/ ie.


RAOTA

RAOTA, the Radio Amateur Old Timers Association is looking for more members and will have a stand at the Lough Erne Rally on Sunday 1 April. RAOTA seeks to keep alive the pioneer spirit and traditions of the past in today’s amateur radio. Its friendly gatherings and nets on the bands, the hundred issues to-date of its quarterly journal, OT News, and RAOTA’s other publications amount to an important, historic and technical treasure of amateur radio lore, that remains pertinent today.For more information visit :- www.raota.org gi0lec.blogspot.com


WRC-12 Gets Underway

The opening of the World Radiocommunications Conference (WRC-12) got under way in Geneva on Monday last and will continue until 17 February. More than 3000 delegates from over 150 countries are represented.

The work started with the election of various committee and working group chairpersons. Brennan Price, N4QX, the ARRL Chief Technical Officer and a member of the US delegation was elected Chairman of the Sub Working Group which will be dealing with agenda item 1.23 on a secondary allocation to the amateur service around 500 kHz.

The IARU is well represented at the conference and of course many countries, including our own, have licensed amateurs as members of their national delegations.

In addition to item 1.23 on 500 kHz the other agenda items of particular interest to radio amateurs are:

1.15 to consider possible allocations in the range 3 to 50 MHz to the radiolocation service for oceanographic radar applications

2.19 to consider regulatory measures and their relevance, in order to enable the introduction of software defined and cognitive radio systems

3.22 to examine the effect of emissions from short range devices on radiocommunications services.

We will try to keep you informed of developments on 500 kHz as news develops.


Cork Radio Club

Cork Radio Club will meet in the River Room at the Commons Inn, New Mallow Road in Cork City at 8.00 p.m. on Monday February 6th. Computer logging in the shack will be the theme of the meeting and some popular logging packages will be demonstrated and evaluated. The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is being marked by several special event stations at ports associated with the ships maiden voyage. These include Belfast, Southampton, Cherbourg, Cobh, Cape Race, VO1MCE and a maritime mobile station, VE0MGY at the site of the sinking. The special call sign EI100T has been issued for the year 2012 and Cork Radio Club members will operate the station from Cobh throughout the year. The main event will happen over the weekend of April 13/14th and everyone is encouraged to visit the special event station over that weekend in Cobh. Information on EI100T from Cormac EI4HQ QTHR. Further information on Cork Radio Club is available from Jeremy EI5GM on 083-3317710. Visitors and new members will be very welcome at the Commons Inn on February 6th.


Limerick Radio Club

The Annual General Meeting of Limerick Radio Club will be hold on Wednesday 8 February 2012 in the Limerick Institute of Technology at 7.30pm and all paid up members are requested to attend.

Rally: Limerick Radio Club rally will be held on Sunday March 11th 2012 at the Radisson Blue Hotel on the Ennis Road, Limerick. Doors open at 11am and all the usual traders will attend. Bring and Buy tables can be ordered from Dermot Gleeson EI2GT.


South Dublin Radio Club Talks

Following Joe EI7GY's interesting talk on the DXCC programme Colin McKeeman will give a talk on aeronautical radio communications on the North Atlantic on Tuesday 31st January

The club plans on launching it's television repeater for Dublin at the Phoenix Amateur Radio Club Rally in February.


DX News

A group of Italian amateurs will be active from the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte from now until 5th February. The callsign is TO4M. As well as being a DXCC entity this one counts for the Island on the Air Award with reference AF-027. QSL manager is IK5CRH.

An international team will air the callsign HU2DX from El Salvador from 29 January until 10 February. The usual prefix in El Salvador is YS so this operation will also be of interest to prefix hunters. The QSL manager is DH7WW.

Two Japanese amateurs will operate as TO3J from the Caribbean island of St Barthelemy from 1 – 6 February. They will be active on all bands 80-6m using CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL info is via JA1HGY.

For those who still need the DXCC entity of the ITU HQ in Geneva look out for 4U1WRC from now until 17 February. This call is active from the 4U1ITU station during the ITU World Radio Conference 2012.


Items for inclusion in next week’s Radio News can be submitted via e-mail to “newsteam /at/ irts / dot / ie” for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. Urgent news items for the radio news maybe telephoned to the radio news editor, Aidan, EI7JC on 085 7100511.

Please note that items for the radio news should reach the editor no later than midday on Thursday in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following Sunday’s bulletin.

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