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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday September 11th 2005


SSB Field Day

Last weekend's SSB Field Day attracted five teams competing in the restricted section on the grounds of Garbally College in Ballinasloe, County Galway.

Weather conditions were excellent for the weekend as the rain, which hit the south of the country stayed away and enabled all the tents to be packed away dry. Band conditions however, were not so good and DX contacts were few and far between.

The battle of Ballinasloe developed into a two horse race between the local Shannon Basin Club who are the current title-holders and the more experienced Dalkey Island team from Dublin. We will have to await the log checking to know the final outcome. There were three beautiful Dublin Crystal trophies, sponsored by the Dalkey Island group, on offer to the teams at Ballinasloe.

The best hourly rate trophy went to the Dalkey Island team, the best HF DX went to the Shannon Basin Club and the best LF DX was won by the Galway Radio Experimenters Club.

The other participants were EI7M/P operated by Dave EI4BZ and Paul EI6FE and Joe EI7GY/P operated as a single operator. Thanks to Garbally College for the outstanding facilities.

The social side of the weekend kicked of on Friday night with a dinner in the local hotel and on Saturday night, the now well-established barbeque, was hosted by the local club with chef, Tony EI3HA again producing an excellent and varied menu.

Cork Radio Club operated from their usual site in Glanmire in the restricted section using the call EI1C/P while the Tipperary Club were active also in the restricted section from a site in Co. Kilkenny.

The crew at EI9E/P combined the IARU Region 1 VHF contest with the HF field day and operated from Co. Wexford.


EI Counties Contest

If you haven't already done so, please submit your log for the EI Counties Contest to the contest manager as soon as possible. All participants, even those with only a few QSOs are urged to submit their logs to help with the log checking. Logs should be sent to the Contest Manager - Noel Walsh at "ei2jc at hotmail.com".


Cork Repeaters

Both repeaters run by the Cork Repeater Group are back in action but the 2 metre repeater on Mullaghanish is currently running on reduced power for the time being. The problem is being attended to.


Hurricane Katrina

Volunteer Radio Amateurs are Filling Many Communication Gaps in the US Gulf Region by volunteering their skills and expertise as the Hurricane Katrina relief effort continues. Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and other volunteers are assisting to support communication for relief agencies, state and local government as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It has been reported that early last week Amateur Radio was the only means for state officials at the state emergency operations centre in Baton Rouge to communicate with the "Florida parishes" above Lake Pontchartrain.

DXers should be aware of frequencies to avoid during this time so as not to interfere with emergency traffic on the amateur radio bands. While many of the frequencies in use are not applicable to IARU Region 1 there are still a number of frequencies in use that should be avoided. The following frequencies are in use; 3.1714, 14.265, 14.300, 14.303, 14.313, 14.316, 14.320, 14.325 and 14.340 MHz.


Rally News

The Cork Radio Rally will be held in the Blarney Park Hotel on the 25th of September. Doors open at 11 a.m. Free parking and plenty of things to do in Blarney as this year celebrates the Cork Capital of Culture. All enquiries about tables, trading etc. should be made to Con on 086 1071312 or 021 4270136 or email "conmac at engineer dot com".

The Waterford Rally will take place on Sunday the 16th of October 2005 in the McEniff, Ard Ri Hotel, Waterford. Traders confirmed to date are; Long Communications, South East Communications and Tetra Communications. The IRTS bookstand will be present and a strong feature will be the Bring and Buy aspect of the rally. Doors open at 11:00 a.m. and admission is 5 Euro. There is no admission charge for children (accompanied by an adult). Special room rates are available for those attending the rally. For information or to reserve exhibition space contact the rally organizer, Michael Hoban, EI5DCB on 051-873310. Information regarding room rates is available on www.searg.com

The Mayo Radio Experimenters Network Rally will be held on Sunday November the 20th at the usual venue, the Belmont Hotel, Knock. Doors open at 11:00 a.m. Bookings for accommodation should be made directly with the hotel. The rate is 50 Euro per person with a special all-in rate of 70 Euro for Bed & Breakfast and evening meal. Traders should contact Padraic Baynes EI9JA for exhibition space.


Upcoming Contests

RTTY operators are catered for in two weeks time with the CQ Worldwide RTTY Contest, the biggest event of the year for keyboarders. This runs for 48 hours from midnight UTC on Friday.

The Scandinavian Activity contest is also held during September. The CW event is next weekend the 17th and 18th and the SSB event will be held over the last weekend in the month on the 24th and 25th. Both of these are twenty-four events starting at 1200 UTC on the Saturday.


Mayo Radio Experimenters Network

The Mayo Radio Experimenters Network will hold their AGM in The Meeting Room, Stensons Lounge Ballyvary on Wednesday October 5th at 9pm. The September meeting discussed at length the recent discussion paper from ComReg and the club response was formulated.

The results of the July/August members competition was announced. The winner was John Corless, EI7IQ, 2nd John McAndrew, EI3JM, 3rd. John Browne, EI7FAB, 4th. Brendan Minish, EI6IZ, 5th Jimmy Kelly EI2GCB.

Night classes will commence in the next few weeks for the theory examination - full details to be announced in the next few weeks. Plans are at an advanced stage for the club Rally on Sunday November 20th.


Space News

The Education Department of ESA, the European Space Agency, are asking Radio Amateurs to help collect telemetry data from the student-built SSETI Express satellite and are offering a prize for the person who submits the most data. The award will be given to the radio amateur who submits the largest number of valid telemetry and payload packets regardless of which band it is received on.

SSETI Express due to launch on September 27th from northern Russia. It will downlink telemetry and payload data in AX25 format at 9k6 on 437.250 MHz and at 38k4 on 2401.835 MHz. It will also at a later date be available for radio amateurs to use as a single channel FM transponder.

Radio amateurs around the world are encouraged to download the necessary software and to use the SERACC system to forward the telemetry and payload data to SSETI Express Mission Control. The software can be downloaded from www.sseti.org/express, this will be available from approximately the 12th of September onwards. Submissions will be automatically recorded and the leaderboard will be shown on the website.

The winner will be offered the opportunity to visit the Student Technology Education Conference 2006 in Germany. The winner will also get a guided tour of ESAs Mission Operations Centre near Darmstadt, Germany.

Video of the launch on September 27th will be streamed live to the web at: mms://wm9.btrichmedia.com/hcatv.


Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be forwarded to Mark EI7IS at QTHR or by phone to 051 853806 or 087 6302026. Items for the radio news can also be faxed to 087 5 6302026. News should be submitted via e-mail to "news at irts dot 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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