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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday May 23rd 2021.


EI9IZ Silent Key

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Hazel Leahy EI9IZ of Barnlough, Bansha, Co Tipperary who passed away on Thursday the 13th of May 2021. While not very active in recent years, Hazel was one of the founding members of Tipperary Amateur Radio Group when it was formed in October 1994. She served as secretary of T.A.R.G. on its formation and played a major role in getting the group active over the following years. Hazel was a well respected and a valued member of T.A.R.G. as her enthusiasm for ham radio was infectious. We offer our deepest sympathies to her loving husband Joe EI5GE and extended family. May she rest in peace.


IRTS Committee 2021/22

The first meeting of the newly elected IRTS committee was held on-line on Saturday May 15th. The main business of this first meeting is to allocate the almost 40 jobs that keep the Society running smoothly. The committee is grateful to all the volunteers who keep the show on the road, many of whom have been doing it for a great number of years. The only changes in the line-up are that Harry O’Loughlin EI2KL was confirmed as Honorary Secretary and Dermot Gleeson EI2GT was appointed as Chairman of the Examination Board to replace Gerry Gervin EI8CC who resigned the position he held on an interim basis. Michael Kingston EI2IX was added to the exam board. The other board members are John Ronan EI7IG and David Malone EI7GYB. Volunteers are required to form part of a newsreaders team with Owen EI4GGB for the Sunday 40 metre broadcasts at 1100 and Echo Ireland Echo Editor Veronica Holohan is still looking for a DX correspondent.


IRTS Annual General Meeting 2022

The 89th Irish Radio Transmitters Society’s AGM weekend will take place over the weekend of the 9th & 10th April 2022 in the Woodford Dolmen Hotel, Kilkenny Road, Carlow. The event is being hosted by The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC. The 2020 weekend was due to take place in the same location, again hosted by the EI2WRC club but had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More details about the 2022 event will be made known once confirmed. The event organising committee hope to make the 2022 event a greater success than the 2015 event held in Kilkenny and look forward to welcoming radio enthusiasts from Ireland and beyond to Carlow for the event. For anyone who wishes to find out more about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and their activities, you can drop them an email to southeasternarg /at/ gmail.com or please feel free to go along to any their meetings. You can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.


CW Field Day

IRTS CW Field Day takes place over the weekend of 5th and 6th of June. This contest is for portable stations and is on the CW contest preferred segments of the contest bands from Top Band to 10 metres. It runs for 24 hours from 1500 UTC on Saturday 5th June; there are 24 hour sections and a restricted 6 hour section. The first weekend in June is when a number of IARU Region 1 societies would normally run CW Field Day contests and has always been a good opportunity for European CW operators test their skills in a portable environment. The covid pandemic has affected field day and other contests over the past year and no IRTS field day events were held in 2020. Following improvements in the public health situation in recent months, we decided to proceed with our field day events this year, subject to restrictions and precautions that have been inserted into the contest rules. We note that DARC, the German national society, has decided to cancel its CW Field Day this year; while it acknowledges the improved health situation, it is concerned that regulations or restrictions may not be uniform throughout the country. The RSGB CW Field Day contest is going ahead, so we can expect plenty of activity from UK portable stations.


IRTS Publications

IRTS publish a quarterly printed magazine, Echo Ireland and a monthly on-line bulletin EI News as well as a weekly radio news bulletin. The deadline for submission of material for the summer edition of Echo Ireland is next Tuesday week June the 1st. If you have a technical article, activity report, club report or anything of interest to our members, Editor Veronica Holohan would love to hear from you. EI News is distributed to all members who have filed an email address with our membership records section on the first day every month, This is edited by Steve Wright EI5DD and he is always seeking information of upcoming events for publication. The deadline for the June edition is Friday next May 28th. Items for publication in Echo Ireland, EI News and the weekly radio news can be sent to newsteam at irts.ie


New 40 MHz propagation beacon now operational from the West of Ireland

A new 8-metre propagation beacon with the callsign EI1CAH is now operational from the west of Ireland and it transmits on a frequency of 40.016MHz. The new beacon will transmit in both CW and PI4 modes with a output power of 25-watts into a horizontal dipole. This new 40 MHz beacon is designed to explore the possibility of VHF paths across the Atlantic as it is situated roughly halfway between the 10m and 6m bands. It is hoped that the beacon will prove to be a very useful propagation indicator for any serious 50 MHz stations in North America looking for any impending openings to Europe. It is expected that the beacon has the potential be heard in North America, the Caribbean and South America during the Sporadic-E season going from May to July every year and also around the time of the peak of the upcoming sunspot cycle when the MUF goes well above 30 MHz.


HAREC Training Nearing an End

The National Shortwave Listener club has been running classes on line for the Amateur Station Licensing Examination since early November. The first two classes Alpha and Bravo completed their course on March 11th and have been attending revision classes since then on Wednesday nights. The third group, Class Charlie, started their course on March 30th and running two nights per week, finished their sixteen lesson course last week and will be joining the other classes for revision on Wednesday nights until an examination is held. It is anticipated that over one hundred students will sit the exam. The National Shortwave Listeners Club meets on Sunday nights on the Zoom platform and all shortwave listeners are invited to join in. Further training will resume after the summer break and anyone interested should make contact via the website. Contact details can be found on www.swl.ie


On the Air next week

The RSGB 80 metres Club Championships on CW runs from 1900z to 2030z on Thursday next May 27th.

The CQ WW CW WPX Contest is on next weekend and runs for 48 hours from midnight utc on Friday night. Congratulations to the following certificate winners in last year’s event for Ireland: EI20C in the All Band high power section, EI0W in the All Band Assisted high power section, EI8JX in the all band low power section, EI4CF in 10 metre low power section and EI2IDB in the 20 metre low power section Lots of DX stations have announced plans to be active for this one.

An interesting event next weekend is ‘The Day of YLs’ which runs for 48 hours on Saturday and Sunday on 80, 40, 20, 10 and 2 metres. It is an all mode event including CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8, DMR, Fusion and DSTAR and of course the object is to encourage YL activity. Everyone is encouraged to join in the fun.

DX news Look out for 3A/IW1RBI from Monaco between the 27th and 30th of May. They plan to operate on the 30 to 6m bands using FT8 in Fox and Hound mode. SSB and CW will also be used. QSL LOTW, Direct or Club Log.

Daniel, 5R8RP has moved to Africa-057, an island of the north-west coast of Madagascar. His current setup includes a vertical multiband antenna for 40-6 metres.

Phil, F5TRO and his wife Ann, F5BSB are relocating permanently to Reunion Island, Africa-016. Their new callsigns are FR8UA and FR8TZ respectively. They will operate mainly SSB and CW. QSL LOTW or direct.


That is the news for this week. Items for inclusion in next week’s radio news can be submitted by email to newsteam/at/irts/dot/ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The deadline is midnight on Thursday. Urgent items for the news may be telephoned to News Editor Dave EI4BZ on 087-6290574.

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