Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 27th March 2022
Update on the Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio
Many of you will have known the late Pat Herbert, founder of the vintage radio museum. It is hard to believe that it's almost two years since his passing. The restrictions during the Covid epidemic prevented the marking of his passing. Simon, Pat's son, plans a commemoration and celebration of his father's life at 10 a.m. on the morning of International Marconi Day, the 23rd of April, outside the Martello Tower in Howth. Pat loved IMD and the activitity and interest it attracted. Once again this year, EI0MAR will be taking part as an Award Station for the event, and visitors are welcome to attend. Any EIs wishing to see or operate from EIOMAR at other times can arrange a visit by contacting Tony, EI5EM by email to ei5emtony /at/ gmail.com. The museum will be reopening to the general public from Saturday, the 2nd of April at weekends, but from the 1st of May it will open daily. For the meantime, if possible, please book online in advance at howthradiomuseum.rezgo.com, although this will not apply for International Marconi Day.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC
The March meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will take place tomorrow night, 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 only two weeks 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 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. People who turn up on the night without a dinner ticket will go hungry.
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's 2022 Annual General Meeting will take place at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday the 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.
CEPT Membership Suspension of Russia and Belarus
The European Conference of Postal And Telecommunications Administrations, CEPT, announced that, based on a request from a number of CEPT members, the CEPT Presidency carried out a written procedure, in accordance with the CEPT Arrangement, on the proposal to suspend indefinitely and with immediate effect the memberships of the Russian Federation and Belarus in the CEPT. Thirty-four responses were received to the CEPT Assembly letter in support of the proposal and one abstention. Based on the above, the CEPT Assembly has therefore decided to suspend indefinitely memberships of the Russian Federation and Belarus in the CEPT, taking effect as from 00:00 CET, on the 18th of March 2022. Any future readmission to the CEPT would follow the usual rules established in the CEPT Arrangement, notably the need for a two-thirds majority of members of the CEPT to endorse such a decision.
Azores Seismic Activity
IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator Greg G0DUB says in a post on the IARU Region 1 website: The island of São Jorge in the Azores has suffered over 1800 earthquakes over 48 hours causing concerns and prompting the Regional Government of the Azores to prepare contingency plans to protect the island's population. Carlos Nora CT1END, Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator for Portugal reports that a group of nine Radio Amateurs in the towns of Velas and Calheta are working to support emergency communications locally through VHF/UHF repeaters, but also long range links back to Portugal. On 80 meters on 3.750 MHz to 3.760 MHz LSB during nights, and on 40 meters on 7.100 MHz to 7.110 MHz LSB during the daytime, on 20 meters on 14.300 MHz USB for outside regions. This external activity being supported by the Azores DX group and the Portuguese national society REP. Other radio amateurs are encouraged to listen carefully and avoid causing any QRM to emergency operations on the above frequencies.
News from around Europe
Svalbard, IOTA EU-026 will see several activations soon, with the first lasting three days, from the 9th of April by single operator JW/DC8TM, immediately followed by a five day effort by a crew of 14 hams from Belgium, using the callsign JW0X. They will use five radios for CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8-FT4.
On the 1st of March, Michael, DB6NT, and his son Matthias, DK5NJ, set a new IARU region 1 record with QSOs on 134 GHz and 241 GHz over a distance of 92,8 km. DB6NT and DK5NJ operated from hilltop locations near Leipzig at over 900m asl, using CW to bridge the distance. The following day, using slightly higher hilltops in Saxony and taking advantage of perfect weather conditions the pair achieved an even better result on 134Ghz, besting their own record with a CW QSO over 157km. DK5NJ published videos, details of the contacts and the equipment they used on his website at www.dk5nj.de . Matthias reports that they used 100 miliWatts on 134 GHz and 50 miliWatts on 241 GHz into pairs of 40 cm diameter high precision dishes.
Following the examples set by many Amateur Radio organizations to suspend or curtail participation in their international contests in view of current events. The SP DX Contest Committee, together with Polish Amateur Radio Union, PZK and the SP DX Club, has decided to cancel the 2022 SP DX Contest, because Poland is busy helping refugees fleeing the war in their neighbouring country.
The Latvian Radiosport Federation, LRSF is collecting donations for Ukraine, and invites radio amateurs around the world to help. They set up a page on the LRSF website under www.lral.lv/lrsf Over the past few years LRSF founder Yuris Petersons, YL2GM organized several DXpeditions, whose team members often included Ukrainian operators.
The Hungarian Radio Amateur Society writes in its latest news bulletin that when entering the Women's Day activities organized by the German DARC, they realized that they needed to improve their HF setup. A translation of the article on their website reads: 'On the afternoon of the event, HA7MA, Marton undertook to handle the deep connection between our ever-expanding lime tree and the 80m inverted-V with a saw, so the crew was able to meet the evening challenges under more favorable conditions. As in the previous year, this year's competition was welcomed by the participating three YLs - HA7GR, Emma, HA7DR, Dora and HA7RA, Anna. They ended the day with 180 QSOs from the usual QTH in Biatorbágy, eventually running out of pizzas.'
The Propagation Horoscope
The DARC reports that every Sunday, at 9 o'clock Irish time, the German DARC broadcasts its weekly radio news on the 10m FM relais DF0HHH, located in Hamburg, on 29.690 MHz. VK6RO received last week's news with S5 and R5 from near Perth. The Hamburg relais working-group receives an increasing number of reception reports from outside Europe, because the sun is getting more active. This increase can now also be seen in ever greater detail, as ESA's solar orbiter will soon reach perigee inside Mercury's orbit. On the 7th of this Month ESA published a high resolution image, snapped as 25 individual tiles, taken at the from the halfway point between Earth and the Sun. Compositing several wavelength, the image shows solar spots and magnetic arcs above the corona in astonishing detail. This week starts with unsettled geomagnetic conditions. The earth facing CME on Friday arrived Sunday noon, resulting in a Kp level spike above 5, with a solar wind increasing above 650km/s, combind with a strong proton count. More settled conditions will follow for the next week. The MUF for the f-layer reaches the 30m band at night, and readily increases to above the 10m band during the day. Again, keep you ears to the VHF and UHF bands, strong tropo openings and transequatorial paths are predicted for this week.
And finally, a reminder that the clocks went forward one hour at 1 a.m. on the last Sunday in March, which in 2022 was today, the 27th of March.
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.
[A]
