Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 20 November 2022
Club Reports from NSWLC, SEARG, LCARC and SBRC
Today's bulletin starts with the monthly report to the IRTS Committee by the secretaries of the IRTS affiliated clubs.
The first one is from the National Shortwave Listeners Club: As of today,NSWLC has 143 members, all of whom are current IRTS members. There are six further applications in the pipeline. 24 new members have joined in the last month to participate in our HAREC course. Nine of our members passed the recent HAREC exam. HAREC Training Class Foxtrot has commenced two weeks ago. There are 63 students attending via Zoom. We are very glad to have recruited three new tutors from amongst the previous students. They are co-presenting the subjects with the the remaining six regular tutors. The NSWLC have started a new mentorship programme. A group of six licensed, active amateurs, our former students, have been each allocated up to nine new members to follow up throughout and after the current course. Their mission is to do whatever would help the students pass the exam, and more importantly, to become active on the air as soon as possible. Being mentored is not compulsory. We hope that many new friendships will be made this way too. The Club has continued to meet every Sunday, except the bank holiday weekend. Attendance was 30 to 43 each Sunday, via Zoom. The 16th of October was about First stations and Small garden antennas, and there was an exam "post-mortem". On the 23rd of Octber: Remote operation, remotely led by Megan EI5LA, Magnetic loop antennas, and an Intro to home brewing. On the 6th of November: Moon, Satellites, Space! Celebrating 35 years of first EI to North America EME in 1987. Draft 3.0.22 of the Study Guide has been released to all club members on the 11th of November 2022. It now has 340 pages with many illustrations. It is only missing one chapter: the final chapter that still needs to be rewritten is "Antennas". Rafal hopes to have this work finished in the coming week.
Mark Kilmartin, Ei4FNB reports for the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group: "Sadly I have to report the passing of one of our members in the last month, Peter Rochford was an SWL that had been working on his license. We had a very good October meeting where we welcomed Larry McGriskin to the meeting, there was a very good discussion between Larry and the members. The club will be meeting in a new location for November with an eye on this being our new location going forward, the advantages of the new location is more flexibility to run workshops and such, also giving us the option to meet on Mondays other than our usual monthly meeting if we want to run work shops, classes etc. We continue to run our weekly Zoom meetings as well, which we are carrying over from Covid days, we will continue to run these social get-togethers as long as there is demand.
Simon Kenny, Ei7ALB writes for the Limerick and Clare Amateur Radio Club: Club activities over the past month included welcoming IRTS President Larry Ei9CN, to the LCARC club station Ei4SAM, located in the Shannon Aviation Museum, on the 29th of October. The visit was an opportunity for the President to see how the PAR funding was used by the Club in promoting amateur radio and also to meet some members of the Club. The President was made aware of the footfall through the museum from groups of primary and secondary students to scout groups, various other groups and the general public. Ideas on supporting initiatives such as offering recognition to Transition Year students, on completing a module, were conveyed to the President. St. Mary’s Scout Group Limerick 2nd and 6th participated in JOTA from the club station. Club members introduced the scouts to the many aspects of amateur radio. LCARC welcomed three of the Foxtrot students Xi, Lukasz and Xiao to the Club station during the JOTA weekend. They were introduced to the station set up and under the watchful eye of Brendan Ei0CZ, Xi made a few contacts for the club log. They were also privy to the presentations on amateur radio given to the JOTA participants. Footfall through the museum has been good over the past month, when several Transition Year students were introduced to Morse Code by Harry Ei2KL. Michael Ei2IX took them through the various meteorological measuring instruments which forms part of the Ei4SAM station. Chairman Dermot Ei2GT gave his usual comprehensive introduction to Amateur Radio.
The Shannon Basin Radio Club Report was sent in by Keith Nolan Ei5IN, he starts with the Jamboree On the Air 2022. Led by Marty Ei2IAB, the club took part in 2022 Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) event in October in Portlick Scout campsite, near Athlone in Co. Westmeath. Under the guidance of Shannon Basin Radio Club members Marty Ei2IAB, Anthony Ei6GGB, Owen Ei4GGB, and Keith Ei5IN, the scouts from the 17th Meath, Longwood Scout Group were able to discover the world of wireless radio techniques via QSOs with stations all over Europe. Owen Ei4GGB used his expertise to help the scouts learn about electronics kit construction in the scout facilities also. Club members were interviewed by Dublin City FM where they talked about amateur radio and how to get started in addition to promoting the Irish Radio Transmitters Society. Shannon Basin Radio Club has restarted their weekly SSB nets on 160m. We encourage DX, local, portable, mobile, and especially newly licensed and first-timers on the band to call in. The 160m net is held on Monday nights from 9 p.m. The 80m net continues on Thursday nights from 9 p.m. also.
Keith's report closes with an update for the IRTS AGM 2023. The Shannon Basin Radio Club will host the 2023 IRTS AGM Weekend on Saturday, the 29th of April, and Sunday, the 30th of April next year. The venue is the Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. The club is busy working on the arrangements; gala dinner tickets are available for purchase and tables are available for the radio rally on the Sunday. Further information is available at www.sbrc.ie/agmweekend
December YOTA
IRTS Youth Officer Niall, Ei6HIB reminds all listeners that December YOTA month is almost upon us! This is a busy time of year especially for young ham radio operators across the world. This December Ei0YOTA and many other YOTA teams will light up the bands in the interests of giving youngsters a taste of our great hobby. A full list of participating stations can be found on the website events.ham-yota.com . The entire month of December several youngsters will become active with YOTA as the call-sign suffix. The idea for this is to show the amateur radio hobby to youth and to encourage youngsters to be active on the ham radio waves. If you wish to activate the Ei0YOTA call-sign, maybe with a scout troop or with kids and grand kids, it is a great way to help promote the hobby to the next generation of DXers, contesters and rag-chewers! Email Niall, Ei6HIB, at yota /at/ irts.ie and a groupchat will be setup to help scheduling.
CWops Award
CWops is pleased to announce that it is now accepting nominations for the prestigious 13th CWops Award for CW Art Development for 2023. The purpose of the award is to honour individuals, groups or organisations that have made the greatest contribution to the art or practice of Morse code radio communications. Candidates for the award may be authors of publications related to CW, CW recruiters, mentors, trainers and instructors, public advocates, activities organisers, designers and inventors who advance the art or practice of CW, and other contributors to the CW art or practice. The award is not limited to hams or their organisations. Nominations can be made by anyone, not just CWops members. The list of awardees will be presented at Dayton Hamvention 2023.
HF Activities
CW contesters will get ready for the last major contest for this year, the CQ Worldwide DX CW Contest runs for 24 hours from 00:00 UTC on Saturday. Using CW only on the 160 to 10m bands, where contesting is permitted, the exchange is signal report and CQ Zone.
TL8AA was heard on 60m and other bands throughout Saturday. Eight Italian hams have troubles staying on air in the Central African Republic, citing problems sourcing enough fuel for their diesel guzzling 30 KW generator. The country is undergoing a severe shortage of fuel. Recents spots show the dxpedition using the call-sign TL8AA for CW, SSB and RTTY. Spots for FT8 show the call-sign TL8ZZ. They are active on all bands from 160 to 6m. QSL is via I2YSB.
IARU-MS
Every month the IARU Monitoring System publishes an extensive newsletter. It contains, among other things, detailed information about intruders on the amateur bands. The October IARU-MS newsletter provides an overview of the most disruptive, unwanted transmissions on our bands: the 'over the horizon' radars. In addition to the Russian Contayner OTH radar, there were many transmissions from the Iranian OTH radar in the 10m band on 28860 occasionally sweeping the entire 10-meter band. Chinese OTH radars were received on 40, 20 and 15 meters. The British OTHR at the R.A.F Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus was received mostly on 15m, but also on 17 and 10m. The full report is available at www.iaru-r1.org
The Propagation Horoscope
Solar Cycle 25 is expected to peak around July 2025, about 32 months from now. Looking at current numbers and predictions, it's worth taking into account reports from Solar Cycle 19, around 1958, when intense solar radiation produced long lasting, worldwide openings on 10m. Solar Cycle 19 had by far the highest sunspot number on record. HF propagation improves at higher frequencies when X-rays from the Sun are more intense, and this is tied to the sunspot numbers, together with the Sun's radiation, measured at 28 GHz. This radiation charges the ionosphere, increasing density.
The Australian Space Weather Forecast Centre currently predicts that a large mid-latitude coronal hole, helped by some glancing interaction of recent CMEs, will cause geomagnetic disturbance, likely starting on Monday morning. It's too early to predict if the expected G1 storm will put a temporary halt to the excellent propagation conditions of late, VK/ZL, Asia and Africa can be heard on all bands, the MUF quickly climbs to above 30 MHz soon after sunrise. Greyline propagation to VK/ZL works long and short path at around 8 to 9 o'clock in the morning.
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 Friday noon.
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