Archived News Script
Irish Radio Transmitter Society Radio News Bulletin Sunday 19 March 2023
News from the IRTS
"Shaping the Future of Amateur Radio" is an initiative set up by Region-1 of the IARU after a week-long workshop session held back in October 2021 involving over 50 countries and 100 radio amateur participants. Having completed this workshop it identified eight strategic objectives that involved the setting up of seven workgroups which were formed to take on the eight objectives and to consider what would be needed to harness amateur radio's legacy and take it forward to meet todays and tomorrow's expectations both from our current and future generations. The IRTS were represented at the workshop sessions by Jim Holohan EI4HH and Séamus McCague EI8BP. For an up-to-date report on the 'Shaping the Future' initiative please see www.iaru-r1.org/stf .
A gentle reminder: With the 2023 IRTS AGM taking place in April, the 2022 Cup and Trophy award holders are asked to return their awards as soon as possible please, so that the Awards Curator Mark Kilmartin EI4FNB can prepare them for the new recipients at the AGM 2023 awards ceremony in Ballinasloe. For anyone wishing to contact Mark you can find his details on the IRTS website. Cups and Trophies can also be returned to any IRTS committee member. Awards Curator Mark wishes to thank all those who have already returned the trophies they won and thanks also to those who had made contact with him in regard to returning trophies not yet returned.
Keith, EI5IN reports that for the IRTS AGM weekend there are only a few rooms at the specially negotiated rate left in the Shearwater Hotel. To snap them up, ring the hotel quoting the 'SBRC' reference.If you have any questions or need help, please contact admin /at/ sbrc.ie directly.
Limerick Clare Amateur Radio Club
Over two days, during week 10 of 2023, more than 200 primary and second level students were introduced to Amateur Radio at the LCARC station in the Shannon Aviation Museum. Along with demonstrating amateur radio, the students were also introduced to aspects of physics and the generation of electricity by Dermot EI2GT. Recent strong winds have damaged the 17m section of the club's HEX beam. It is planned to carry out repairs during the coming week.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC
The March meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will take place on Monday, the 27th of March 2023, at 8 p.m. sharp at the New Community Men's Shed, Ozanam Centre, Coffee House Lane, Waterford. New members, or anyone interested in learning more about amateur radio or the group are as always very welcome to attend.
Members of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group the will be QRV as EI2IMD on Saturday, the 22nd of April for International Marconi Day 2023. The station will be active from the Burrows Car Park, Tramore, Co. Waterford with thanks to Waterford City and County Council. Tramore has a direct connection with Marconi as he often stayed there with his aunt, a Mrs. Cookman who resided at the Cove, Tramore. Special thanks to the the Cornish Radio Amateur Club for organising this special event. The club will be active on HF, VHF, UHF, DMR and digital modes. The EI2IMD call-sign will also be on air on the southern Ireland repeater network, with thanks to the southern Ireland repeater group. More details will be made known in the run up to the event on the SEARG Facebook and EI2IMD QRZ pages. For more information on the International Marconi Day please see www.gx4crc.com 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 of their meetings. You can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also find them on Facebook. You can also follow them on Twitter /at/ seargnews
RNLI SOS Week
To date EI3CC is the only Irish Amateur Radio club to be registered for the RNLI "SOS" week. During the month of May EI3CC will be participating in "SOS radio week" to help promote the work of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, the National Coastwatch Institution, the National Inshore Lifeboat Association and other independent lifeboat and rescue organizations in Ireland, the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. SOS Week actually lasts for the entire month of May and is intended to raise awareness of the excellent work that the above institutions perform. See www.sosradioweek.org.uk for details. So if you hear EI3CC calling CQ during May please call us back. We will be operating at various times throughout May on the HF and VHF bands and through the Irish repeater systems.
2023 HAMChallenge
The IARU-1 Executive Committee Member Lisa Leenders, PA2LS invites us to participate in the 2023 HAMChallenge. She writes on the IARU-r1 website: "We are looking for your ideas! We are inviting you to take part in one of the HAMChallenges: Amateur Radio is about fun, radio communications, technology, experimentation, self-training, and friendship. Do you have a mind-blowing idea you would like to share with the community? The International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 is inviting you to come with a game-changing idea, which increases awareness of amateur radio. We are looking for your cool idea or project which you think is part of the future of amateur radio. Make a team, share your idea, present your proposal, and bring this to reality. This is the time present the amateur radio with a different perspective, and we are looking for you! The best proposals will be rewarded, don't miss this opportunity!" Two types of challenges are aimed at hams and yet-to-be hams, participant's proposals must be submitted by the first of July. The rules and details for this year's HAMChallange can be downloaded from the IARU-R1 website.
Contesting
The results of the 80 Meters Counties Contest which was held on the 1st of January 2023 have recently been published on the IRTS website. There was good participation from both shores of the Irish Sea and even the Channel Islands, with many New Year greetings exchanged. Twenty four of the thirty two counties were logged during this one hour contest. Well done to all who took part! The published results list is available on the results page on www.irts.ie . The next one IRTS contest will be the 80m Evening Counties Contest, this Tuesday, the 21st of March at 20:00 UTC, for one hour. All details can be found on the contests section of the IRTS website. This weekend has been a busy contest weekend, with not only St. Patrick's weekend activity filling the hf bands, but also the BARTG-RTTY, the UBA SSB Spring Contest, and the first Sprint leg of the Maidenhead Mayhem, the dry-run for the extended July event. The Bucharest Digital Contest on 80 and 40m is a straight forward 3 hour long FT4 contest, starting at 18.00 UTC. Scoring is one point per contact, there are no multipliers or such. The frequencies in use on 80m will be from 3575 to 3578 kHz and on 40m from 7047,5 to 7050 kHz. More info can be found at yo3test201x.blogspot.com . Generally improved conditions on 6m will make it worthwhile to check out the Belgian UBA VHF 6m Phone and CW contest next Sunday morning from 06.00 to 10.00 UTC. The organiser's webpage is at springcontest.on4dst.be . The SSB leg of the CQ WPX Contest is scheduled for next weekend, running for 48 hours on all of Saturday and Sunday next, the CW leg takes place in May.
EI-DX travels to Antigua
From the 24th of March to April 2nd, 11 members of the EI DX Group will be QRV from Antigua Island, IOTA Ref NA-100, using the call V26EI. They hope to be setup in time to participate in the CQ WW WPX SSB Contest. Operation over the nine days will be on CW, SSB, RTTY and a little FT8. Details of the trip can be followed on the blog page v26ei.eidxg.com The group look forward to seeing many of you in the logs. QSL is via Charles M0OXO, his website is at www.m0oxo.com . All logs will be uploaded to LoTW after the trip.
The Propagation Horoscope
Last week's firework of C-flares and CMEs, with one glancing Earth on Wednesday causing deep blackouts, but also surprise openings on the higher bands, combined with some Aurora imprinted raspy signals. This has now given way to a calmer period, seeing kP values dropping back to more DX-sked friendly values around two to three, helped by an elevated but steady Proton Flux. It's too early yet to expect Tropo conditions to develop on the lower VHF bands, but sporadic-E observations show openings towards the Carribean and across southern and central Europe.
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.
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