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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 20th March 2022


Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio

Tony, Ei5EM informs us that Contrary to what was erroneously stated on a recent radio programme, the museum is not closing down and, in fact, will be reopening at weekends starting in April. It was also erroneously stated that the contents of the museum were being auctioned off. While the private collection of the late Pat Herbert was auctioned recently, nothing from the display in the museum was affected, as this separate collection is Pat's legacy to us. The Howth Martello Radio Group will be taking part in International Marconi Day on the 23rd of April, using the call-sign EI0MAR and visitors are very welcome to come along and operate the club station. In preparation for International Marconi Day, Tony, EI5EM and Joe EI2JZ, installed a new HF X80 antenna on the roof of the Martello in Howth last Monday. This was purchased with the help of a grant from the IRTS PAR fund. Antennas at this exposed location suffer from extreme weather conditions and need to be replaced every few years. The museum will never be the same again without Pat, but we'll keep it going in his honour and I know that his spirit will always be present within the Martello Tower, along with that of Lee DeForest who demonstrated his wireless telegraphy system there in 1903.


South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC

The March meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will take place on Monday the 28th of March 2022 at 8.00 p.m. sharp at The Sweep Bar, Adamstown, Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford, Eircode X91 H588. New members or anyone interested in learning more about amateur radio or the group are as always very welcome to attend. With less than a month to go to the 89th IRTS AGM Weekend which will be held on Saturday and Sunday the 9th and 10th of April at the Woodford Dolmen Hotel, Carlow, people are reminded to please prebook your dinner tickets. Dinner tickets for the Gala Dinner on the Saturday evening can be prebooked from John EI7IG. Tickets cost 35 Euro and must be prebooked before the 4th of April. The SEARG radio rally will take place on Sunday the 10th of April, starting at 10:30 a.m. sharp and closing at 2:00 p.m. There will be no admittance to the rally to the public until 10:30 a.m. The rally promises to be a great day with Ireland???s main radio dealers and equipment suppliers in attendance. There will also be many individual traders in attendance so come early to grab a bargain! Entry to the rally will be 5 Euro. The Irish Radio Transmitters Society 2022 Annual General Meeting will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday 10th of April 2022 in the Morrison Suite at the Woodford Dolmen Hotel. Entry to the AGM will only be permitted to fully paid-up IRTS members and in line with previous practice membership will be checked prior to entry. EI2WRC are looking forward to welcoming everyone to Carlow over the weekend for the event. For more information about the event please see www.irtsagm2022cw.blogspot.com For anyone that 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 of their meetings. You can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.


Shannon Basin Radio Club

The Shannon Basin Radio Club AGM was held in Hannon's Hotel Roscommon on the evening of the 4th March. This was the first physical meeting in a while. There was a great attendance, including some members who have become recently licensed, and we welcomed a veteran SWL. Pat EI9HX chaired the meeting, and as there were new members present who may not have attended a meeting, asked everyone to do a quick introduction. A minutes silence was observed for recent Silent Keys. The usual AGM business then commenced. Election of officers and committee took place, with some changes. A great helping of finger food, sandwiches and refreshments was enjoyed by all, followed by discussion of many topics including the club's event plans for the year, planned contest participation, the continuing club nets, and a repeater update, followed by 'Any Other Business'. The meeting was then closed and group photo's were taken by Anthony EI6GGB who also maintains great photography skills. The club wishes to thank all those who attended and also Hannon's??Hotel as we look forward to many more meetings going forward. The club also recently met up with one of its more recent members Peter Carty on a visit back to EI. Peter is currently resident in California and licensed as KM6MJC there. He is hoping soon to return to the Sligo/Leitrim area and become licensed in EI and we wish him all the best in this endevour. Hopefully, Peter can find a high spot as good as his local Mt. Diablo at 4000 feet with its 200W repeater. Anyone wishing to find out more about the Shannon Basin Radio Club can always go to our website www.sbrc.ie, email us at admin /at/ sbrc.ie or follow us on facebook and indeed feel free to join us at any of our meetings or field day events.


Engineers Ireland Presentation

Jeffrey, EI7IRB informs us that the Fire and Safety division of Engineers Ireland is presenting a talk by Engineer Diarmuid Moran, titled 'Radio Frequency Safety including 5G rooftop base stations'. This talk might be of interest to radio amateurs as the presentation reviews and explores the safety requirements and standards applicable to rooftop base stations and antenna structures. Examples of hazard identification and risk controls for occupational and public exposure to Electro Magnetic Fields (EMF) and RF safety will also be discussed. The Presentation will take place on the Zoom Platform, and is scheduled for Thursday, the 24th March 2022 at 7:00 p.m. To book a place at this free event visit the website at www.engineersireland.ie/Events/event/7969


Newsletters

EME operators and interested SWLs can now download the latest issue of the '432 and Above EME Newsletter' for February and March 2022. The link for the free PDF download, and up to date information about current EME operations can be found on the Nitehawk website at www.nitehawk.com/rasmit

The Winter??issue for 2022 of the Tuscan Amateur Packet Radio group quarterly newsletter is now available??from the TAPR website Library. This issue covers their new 80m and 160m WSPR Transmitter, thoughts on APRS, and an article on the use of Starlink groundstations in Ukraine. Please visit www.tapr.org

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has released its World Radio Conference 2023 (WRC-23) booklet. It provides easy access to the WRC-23 agenda and pertinent resolutions. It can be freely downloaded from their website at www.itu.int

The IARU Monitoring System also issued their latest newsletter, giving a detailed report on band intrusions reported by the volunteers who keep an eye on the interferences caused by over-the-horizon radars and pirate station within our allocations. The report can be found on the informative website at www.iaru-r1.org


Helgoland

Over twenty operators will activate the German island of Helgoland for two weeks, starting next Friday, the 25th of March. The group will be using two callsigns. DA0HEL will be used on the main island, located in the German Bight. The second callsign DL0IH will be used during daytime from the uninhabited dune island next to Helgoland, limited by the tides and the ferry timetables. The youth hostel on the island will provide accomodation and serve as the shack for operations on all bands, on all modes. Contacts with the team on Helgoland will count towards the RSGB-IOTA diploma, Helgoland and the neighbouring dune share the IOTA number EU-127.


Contests

The IRTS 80m evening contest will be held on Tuesday next, the 22nd of March, running for one hour from 20:00 UTC on both CW and SSB. Logs must be with the contest Manager by the 5th of April and should be sent by email to IRTS.contests /at/ gmail.com. Last years event attracted 112 entries from 27 counties and 12 DXCC entities with the top scoring station making 79 QSOs with 22 counties and 7 DXCCs. Please have a look at the 'Contest' section of the irts website.

Many contest organizers either cancelled or changed their contest rules, due to the invasion of the Ukraine by Russian forces. In line with this, the CQ WPX Contest Blog states that CQ Communications Inc., publishers of CQ Amateur Radio magazine and sponsor of the CQ World Wide DX and WPX Contests, announced on the 17th of March: 'In light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and Belarus, it will not accept competitive entries in any of its sponsored contests by amateur radio stations in Russia, Belarus or the separatist Donbas region of Ukraine, with the unofficial D1 prefix. Logs submitted by these stations will be accepted only as checklogs. In addition, contacts with these stations by other participants will have zero point value and will not count as multipliers. The CQ policy will take effect with the 2022 CQ WPX SSB Contest scheduled for the 26th and 27th of March.'


The Propagation Horoscope

The stable high pressure zone over the Northern Sea will not only bring sunny spring weather, but also good tropospheric propagation into most parts of Europe. Combined with sporadic-E, tropo should bring some interesting openings on 8 meters and above. The large sunspot group 2965 continues to spew flares, more M-flares are likely. The effects of Friday's CME is making itsself felt since Sunday morning, increasing the solar wind speed to above 600 km/s this weekend. Much calmer conditions will prevail for the coming week, so we will continue to enjoy strong openings until late into the night up the 20 meter band, with a daytime MUF2 over 3000km easily reaching 30 MHz.

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.ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The deadline is midnight on Friday.

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