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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday February 21st 1999


Phoenix Amateur Radio Club Annual Sale

The Phoenix Amateur Radio Club's annual bring and buy sale is being held on Sunday next February the 28th with the doors opening to the public at 1100. There will be bring and buy stalls, commercial vendors and the usual refreshments available all day. The venue is the Coolmine Community School, Clonsilla, County Dublin, which is quite close to the new Blanchardstown Shopping Centre.


South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

The Annual General Meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will be held on Wednesday next the 24th of February at 8.30pm in Egan's Lounge Bar, Barronstrand Street, Waterford. All members are requested to attend 5MHz Band in US The FCC has issued an Experimental Radio Service license to the ARRL to permit two-way tests in the vicinity of 5 MHz, the most likely site of the next amateur HF band. The license, bearing the call sign WA2XSY, was issued on January 8th last. A group of 15 current amateurs in various parts of the US and the Caribbean will conduct experimental, two-way RTTY and SSB transmissions within the band of 5.100 to 5.450MHz.


Worked All Mayo/Worked All Ireland

Members of the Mayo Radio Experimenters Network plan to operate mobile in the county on Sunday next February the 28th from 10am on 3.680MHz, to activate Mayo squares. Anyone interested in mainland squares is asked to contact John Corless EI7IQ on email, ei7iq@tinet.ie or John McDonnell EI6IR on the telephone at 094-60127. The club will endeavour to activate any square requested.


Worked All Ireland on 40 metres

With the changing conditions on both 40 and 80 metres, the Worked All Ireland Group are planning a move to 40 metres immediately. They will try the frequency of 7.068 MHz plus or minus QRM and would appreciate callers. Activity will continue as usual on 3.680MHz and on 145.350 MHz on VHF.


South Dublin Radio Club

The Annual General Meeting of South Dublin Radio Club takes place on Tuesday next 23rd February at 8.00 pm, in the club's QTH at the Ballyroan Community Centre, Marian Road, Rathfarnham. All members are requested to attend.


End may be near for MIR

Senior Russian space officials reported last week that efforts to find private investors to keep Mir aloft are failing and the station might be dumped into a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean by late summer. The Mir space station has been staffed almost continuously since its core module was launched on February the 20th 1986. Sixty cosmonauts and astronauts from around the world have conducted research there, including seven Americans that visited the station between 1995 and 1998. Nine U.S. shuttle flights were also flown to Mir as a precursor to construction of NASA's new International Space Station. Russian cosmonaut Viktor Afanasyev along with crewmates Jean-Pierre Heignere of France and Ivan Bella of Slovakia are expected to arrive on Mir on it's 13th birthday later this month. Bella, the first Slovakian to fly in space, is expected to return to Earth in early March with Mir's current commander, Gennady Padalka. Cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev, the station's current flight engineer, is to remain onboard with Afanasyev and Heignere until August. In the end, a pair of Progress space freighters are expected to be used to gradually lower the station from it's current orbit 250 miles above Earth to one about 100 miles above the planet. Then a new advanced Progress freighter that can carry twice the fuel of earlier models would be launched to Mir. Once the new ship docked at Mir, the crew would shut down most station systems before returning to Earth aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. Ground controllers then would fire the new Progress's powerful engines, sending Mir on a destructive plunge through the atmosphere. Most of the 130-ton outpost would burn up in the atmosphere. Any remaining pieces would fall harmlessly into a remote area of the Pacific Ocean.


Looking ahead

Here are a few dates for your diary. An IRTS Committee Meeting will be held in the Shamrock Lodge Hotel in Athlone on Saturday March 13th at 1430. The annual EI Activity Day will be held on Sunday March 21st while the Limerick Rally takes place on the same day at the Limerick Inn on the Ennis Road in Limerick. The IRTS 2 metre Counties Contest takes place on Monday April the 5th and the IRTS AGM and Dinner dance will be held in Dundalk over the weekend of April 24/25th. The Donegal Rally will be held this year on Sunday June 27th in Jackson's Hotel in Ballybofey.


Items for inclusion in the Radio News can be faxed to 021-632730 or passed on the telephone to Dave EI4BZ on 021-632444 during the day or at 021-883555 in the evening.

Input for the Newsletter should be sent to Kevin EI7IM at QTHR or on the phone at 01-4509514 or by E-mail to EI7IM@tinet.ie All input to either the radio news or newsletter can also be sent by e-mail to news@irts.ie

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