Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday April 17th 2005
Enniskillen Rally
The annual mobile rally, by the Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club is taking place today starting at 12 noon at a new location. Located some 5 miles from Enniskillen the Manor House Hotel is on the Enniskillen to Kesh road, where all the usual traders will be in attendance. Club contact is Herbie on (028) 048 663287761.
Mini Marathon
On Monday the 6th of June, EI2BY will be providing emergency radio coverage of the women's mini-marathon. If you would like to take part in this special event licensed by ComReg as EI2WMM please contact George Adjaye, EI2CPB by fax on 01 4908546 or phone 086 2586103. You can also e-mail George at adjayeg at dcu.ie. Please provide your name, phone number and callsign. Also note that you will require a 2-metre rig of your own for the event.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group
The next general meeting of South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will take place at 8.00 p.m. on Wednesday the 27th of April 2005. This meeting will feature a talk and demonstration of APRS by John Ronan EI7IG and John McCarthy EI8JA.
The date of the 2005 Waterford Rally has been announced. The rally will take place on the 16th of October 2005 in the McEniff, Ard Ri Hotel. Waterford.
More information will be announced in future bulletins and at www.searg.com
Packet News
Following the recently reported network reconfiguration and improved connectivity in the south east of the country, internet 'trunk' links have now been established from Waterford (EI3RCW-8) to Mayo (EI7MRE-2) and Co Dublin (EI7SDX-9). This will ease the congestion at EI7KRC which until now has been the only AX25 route open from the south and south east of Ireland to the Dublin area. The new routes also provide increased access with good data rates, from the Dublin area to the BBS of EI3DIB (TIPBBS) and others, as well as from the SE to DX clusters EI7SDX (SHANDX, Co Dublin), EI7WDX (WDX, Co Wicklow) and (MAYODX, Co Mayo). Both the BBS and DX cluster nodes are linked into global networks providing bulletins and real time information from around the world.
The APRS geographical position reporting system is also going from strength to strength in Ireland. This system using a small packet modem and a hand held transceiver or mobile permits a flag to appear on maps detailing position, speed and direction of the user. Fixed stations and stations providing weather information can also be accessed. The pockets of APRS activity in Ireland are linked into the global internet APRS system, which can of course be accessed from anywhere in the World. Great if you want to check on your friend rock climbing in the Wicklow mountains whilst on a business trip in New York! There are APRS Digipeaters on Mt Leinster, Templetown, Co Waterford on the national and European APRS frequency of 144.800 with one in Cork due online shortly.
Internet APRS gateways are also available in Co Dublin on 144.875 MHz and Bray, Co Wicklow on 144.925 MHz, where APRS shares the frequency with the local DX cluster nodes. For APRS please use the UI-PATH of WIDE2-2.
There are also gateways to all these systems from the Internet for radio amateurs, albeit sometimes with password protection. Contact EI3IO, EI6IZ, EI7IG or EI6CPB or other AX25 packet system operators for more information.
Dates for your Diary
The SP DX RTTY Contest will take place next weekend the 23rd and 24th of April. Also on will be the HB9 and the HK DX contests, both on CW and SSB.
The National Mills Weekend in the UK takes place over the weekend of the 7th and 8th of May 2005. More information can be had from www.g4cdd.net/mills.html
International Marconi Day (23rd April 2005)
International Marconi Day (IMD) is a 24-hour amateur radio event held annually to celebrate the birth of Guglielmo Marconi on the 25th of April 1874. The IMD event is not a contest, it is an opportunity for amateurs around the world to make point-to-point contact with historic Marconi sites using HF communications techniques similar to those used by Marconi, and to gain an attractive Award for achieving the requisite number of Marconi stations worked.
International Marconi Day is usually held on the Saturday closest to Marconi's birthday, when amateur radio stations are established and operated from or near original historic sites. This year, the event will take place on Saturday next, the 23rd of April. These stations are known as the 'Award Stations' and are listed on the IMD Web Site. The list is regularly updated as the various stations confirm their availability to operate. For more information visit gb4imd.co.uk.
Saturday 23 April is International Marconi Day, celebrating the 131st anniversary of the great man's birth on 25 April 1874. The event sees many international stations with connections with Marconi active on HF. The event is organised by the Cornish Radio Amateur Club, which will be operating G4IMD, from the Marconi Centre in Poldhu Cove, from where the first transatlantic transmission took place in 1901. There are many awards available for working the special event stations. More information is available on the Cornish Radio Amateur Club's website www.gb4imd.co.uk/, including the list of Award Stations The Martello Tower in Howth, which was once the site of a Marconi station, will be active on the day from the Vintage Radio Museum located in the tower. The call EI4BST will be used for the event. The museum is open from 11 to 4 on weekends and it is hoped to operate beyond these hours on that date. Why not drop by and visit the museum and perhaps operate the special Marconi station. The website of the museum is www.qsl.net/ei5em/museum.html
EI4IMD in Clifden, Co. Galway is the only station confirmed as being active on the GB4IMD Website.
CW Field Day
CW Field Day will as usual be held over the first full weekend in June and intending participants are asked to contact the contest manager as soon as possible. If there is sufficient interest, the event can be held at a central location. The following have already confirmed their participation: The Shannon Basin Group, The East Cork Group and Joe Ryan EI7GY.
World Amateur Radio Day 2005
The World Amateur Radio Day 2005 Award is designed to commemorate the World Amateur Radio Day celebrated by IARU on tomorrow the 18th of April. It is issued by the Polish Radio Amateurs Journal, with support of PZK, The Polish Amateur Radio Union.
WARD 2005 will be granted for at least the following numbers of contacts: either 10 QSO's on HF bands, or 5 QSO's on VHF bands. All contacts must be made between 00:00 and 24:00 UTC on the 18th of April 2005. Send a standard application form (log extract), including the list of QSO's, to:
MK QTC, The Radio Amateurs' Journal, Suchacz-Zamek, Wielmozy 5b, 82-340 Tolkmicko, Poland on or before the 31st of May 2005. The price of the WARD 2005 Award is 5 US dollars or 5 euro. The WARD 2005 Award is also available to SWL's for the same numbers of reports.
Important Information for 2-metre Counties Contest Entrants The Spring 2 metre Counties Contest took place on Easter Monday last. The closing date for receipt of Logs is Wednesday April 27th 2005. Logs arriving after this date will not be accepted. Important. If emailing logs please ensure that they are sent to contests at irts dot ie. Please use this address only as logs sent to other email addresses may be lost due to spam filtering, all logs submitted by email will be acknowledged on receipt, if you do not receive a receipt within 24 hours contact the Contest Manager. Paper logs should be sent directly to Noel EI2JC at QTHR. The e-mail address again is contests at irts.ie.
Monday QRS CW Net
The weekly QRS CW Net will commence on Easter Monday, 28 March on 3.567MHz at 1900 hours. EI2JP is net control.
The purpose of this net is to promote a minimum CW proficiency by conducting an informal net combining code practice and on-the-air participation.
The format of the net will be a brief paragraph or two for warm-up, followed by check-ins, and wrapped up with another paragraph or two for additional practice. The practice sessions will be sent at 6 words per minute. All participants, regardless of ability, are encouraged to join in.
Further information can be obtained from EI2JP or from the Kerry Amateur Radio Group's web site at www.kerry.com
Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be forwarded to Mark EI7IS. News should be submitted via e-mail to news@irts.ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. Please note that items for the radio news should reach the editor no later than midday on Fridays.
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