Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday June 16th 2002
Trip to Inishkea
The planned trip to the Inishkea south Island by Joe EI3IX has been rescheduled for today, Sunday June 16th. Geraghtys of Blacksod are providing the boat for the day. The trip out to the island will take 1 hr approx.
The plan is to set up operation from the north square first (F52). Joe hopes to be on air by 1100 hrs. Its looking like EI6DZ & EI5DD will also be making the trip, so F52 will remain on air for the duration of the trip.
Joe will then head to the south square to activate F51 with a portable HF backpack compliments of EI6DZ along with VHF/UHF gear.
4 Metre Activity Evening
The first 4 meter activity evening this year was run at 2000hrs on Tuesday 4thof June. John EI7FAB and Joe EI3IX went portable to Glenisland, 4 miles North West of Castlebar, WAI square M19, Maidenhead locator IO53HV. Elevation of site is 600ft approx. The site is only a few hundred yards from Dave EI4IX's QTH.
Equipment used was an AKD4001 4 meter rig for FM running 25 watts. For SSB operation a microwave modules transverter was used with a Yaesu FT290 to drive it running 10 watts. The antenna used was a Moonraker 5 element yagi (Horizontal) at 25ft. Monitor frequency was 70.260Mhz.
There is good take off to the east and south from this site on 2 metres so it was thought that 4 metres maybe the same. Unfortunately very little activity to report with only EI5IX and EI9JA worked both 5/9 in IO53LT. Its quite possible operators were active in other parts of the country that John and Joe could not hear.
Dave EI4IX put the station on the DX cluster at 2034 hrs, Russ G4PBP located in IO82 tried to make contact but nothing heard, maybe someone along the east coast may have made contact with him.
The next activity evening will be run at 2000 hrs on the 2nd of July 2002. It is hoped that as many stations as possible get involved in the activity.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group
IRTS President, Dave Moore EI4BZ was the guest at the last general meeting of South Eastern Amateur Radio Group. The next meeting of South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will take place at 8.00 p.m. on Wednesday the 26th of June 2002. Members are asked to attend and visitors and new members are welcome.
Slievenamon Perpetual 70cm Trophy 2002
The Slievenamon Perpetual Trophy was presented to the IRTS by Tipperary Amateur Radio Group in 2001. It will be awarded to the station that achieves the highest number of points in a 70cm's only competition.
Tipperary Amateur radio Group hopes that this award will in part encourage activity on the 70cm band throughout the month of July. The competition is to be restricted annually to all Sundays over the month of July and only FM simplex contacts are valid. Points are calculated as follows; 1 point per contact multiplied by the number of counties. Outside EI/GI only 1 point and no multiplier. Entrants are permitted to include contacts made during the IRTS UHF/VHF field day, so long as the contacts are on 70cms FM and simplex. There is a power restriction of 150watts. Contacts can be made mobile, portable and stationary. This is an IRTS members only competition and standard competition logs are to be submitted to the IRTS Contest Manager ei2jc@hotmail.com before the 31st of August. For further details please e-mail TRG secretary at john.burke@honeywell.com. July seems like a long way but now is the time to start planning on potential sites to use, equipment and antenna setup.
VHF Field Day 2002
The rules for the up coming VHF Field Day in July will be unchanged, there will be the usual 2 sections, Restricted section (2 meters only) & the Open section, 2 meters, 6 meters, 4 meters, 70cm & 23cm. (See the IRTS member directory). It's hoped that there will be plenty of active stations in EI for this contest.
World Cup Special Event
Ten Japanese special event calls will be aired to celebrate the FIFA World Cup in Korea and Japan: These callsigns are 8M1C, 8N1C, 8J1C, 82JC, 8N3C, 8J3C, 8J6C, 8J7C, 8J8C and 8J0C.
Antartic
A ledge in the Antarctic has been named after a radio amateur who provided phone patches for scientists working in the region. Larry Skilton, K1IED, says that to his knowledge, he's the first Amateur Radio operator who's never been to Antarctica to have a place named after him for services rendered. Skilton Ledge is a flat rock platform in the Darwin Mountains and is named after Larry Skilton K1IED worked a regular nightly schedule for 11 years assisting in the several thousand calls.
Items for inclusion in Echo Ireland should be forwarded to Dave Moore EI4BZ at 021-4883555. Items can also be submitted to Dave by e-mail at ei4bz@eircom.net.
Items for inclusion in the Radio News should be forwarded to Mark Wall EI7IS at QTHR or via e-mail to ei7is@qsl.net or cyberis@e-merge.ie. Items can also be sent to Mark over the phone at 087-6302026.
News can also be submitted via e-mail to news@irts.ie for automatic forwarding to both news services.
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