Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 4th May 2014
Course Guide Update – Amateur Station Licence
The Course Guide for the Amateur Station Licence Examination has recently been extended to include additional pages covering both the "Licensing Conditions" and the "Operating Rules & Procedures" sections of the course. The new pages are designed to make it easier for those preparing for the exam to study the relevant material for these topics. The Course Guide is at www.irts.ie/course (or see the "Exam Course Guide" button on the society's home page) and a zip file of the complete course is available for download at www.irts.ie/downloads - the zip file is ideal for offline viewing. A revised version of our document "Studying for the Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate", also available on the downloads page, now includes the syllabus, sample paper and recent reports published by the Examinations Board.
Revitalised VHF Squares Table on IRTS Website
Steve, EI5DD is now the VHF Manager for IRTS and he advises us that a revitalized version of the VHF Squares Table will appear on the IRTS Web Site. Traditionally, the Squares Table runs from January to December and therefore if any VHF operator would like to be included in the Squares table, they should send their totals for each month commencing January 2014. For those who have not participated before, the squares tables show the number of Maidenhead locator squares (e.g. IO63, IN88) worked by EI operators on bands 50 MHz, 70 MHz, 144 MHz, 432 MHz, 1296 MHZ, and 10 GHz. Contacts via repeaters or satellites do not count, and no QSLs are required.
Reports about VHF & UHF Openings and other relevant information would also be appreciated for inclusion in a Month by Month Report for Echo Ireland. Obviously the success of this will be entirely dependent on contributions from VHF & UHF enthusiasts.
The information should be sent to Steve EI5DD at wright14 /at/ gmail.com.
CQ CQ All Amateur Radio Clubs
All Amateur Radio Clubs and indeed anyone else organizing amateur radio theory classes are asked to contact Steve, EI5DD who is compiling a list and he awaits your contact with details to wrights1 /at/ eircom.net. This is a further opportunity for amateur radio clubs to advertise for new members who are interested in taking the amateur radio theory examination.
Dundalk Amateur Radio Society EI7DAR
The AGM of Dundalk ARS will take place Wednesday 7th May 2014 /at/ 8.30pm in Larkin House, 116 Castletown Road, Dundalk. New members, visitors and swl's will be made most welcome. Tea and refreshments will be served.
Cavan Repeater EI2LLX
The Cavan repeater EI2LLX will be down for essential and necessary maintenance from the 4th May to 7th May 2014. Ronnie EI9ED apologises for any inconvenience this may cause anyone using this popular and very busy repeater systems.
The West Tyrone Amateur Radio Club
The West Tyrone Amateur Radio Club in Omagh Co Tyrone will hold its 5th Conference in the County Town of Omagh on Saturday 04/10/2014.
The location of the Conference has a change of venue this year, it will be held in the Village Inn, Killyclogher, Old Mountfield Rd, Omagh, County Tyrone BT79 7LT. www.wtarc.net
Shanes Castle Special Event Station
Ballymena Amateur Radio Club GI3FFF, will hold a Special Event Station at Shanes Castle Steam Rally, Shanes Castle Estate (CASHOTA GI-026, WCA GI-00032, WAB: J18, WW Loc. IO64UR), Antrim, Co. Antrim, NI. (EU-115, WLOTA 1439). They will be QRV on 4th and 5th of May 2014 using the callsign GN4KPT on various modes and bands. QSL via MI0RYL, bureau or direct.
DX News
Karl DK2WV, who has been active from a good number of DXCC entities in the Pacific and Africa, will be on the air from Malawi from 6 – 21 May. While there he will use the callsign 7Q7VW on all bands 6 – 160m. QSLs go via the home call.
Rich KE1B and Anna W6NN will be QRV as V25M and V25N from the island of Antigua from 7 – 15 May. They hope to load their logs to ClubLog in real-time so it should be possible to check your contact immediately. Operation will be on 40 – 10m CW, SSB and RTTY with emphasis on the WARC bands.
A well-travelled DXer, Haru JA1XGI, celebrates his 50 years of amateur radio, with a visit to Pohnpei in Micronesia in the Pacific. He will use the special call V650XG from 9 – 15 May.
A large number of Russian stations will use the prefix RP69 from 3 – 9 May. This is to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the end of World War II. More details can be found on pobeda.srr.ru/
EI DXCC List
Every month we update the EI DXCC List on the web site. In the latest update we were delighted to see that long-time DXer Mark EI6JK has joined the DXCC programme, with 243 DXCC entities confirmed, and DXCC awarded on five bands. Mark tells us that all of these confirmations were received through Logbook of the World, so no doubt his DXCC score will rise when paper QSLs are added. Mark is not the only 'mover' on the DXCC list - see www.irts.ie/dxcc for full details of current DXCC scores and recent 'movers'.
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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