Irish Radio Transmitters Society Radio News Bulletin Sunday January 7th 2007 ______________________________________________ Dick Craig EI9ET, Silent Key We are very saddened to announce that Dick Craig EI9ET became a silent key on the 2nd of January 2007 after a short illness. Dick was a native of Glasgow, where he had the callsign GM3NIF, and he held degrees from several universities. He developed a liking for West Cork as a result of a radio friendship, which he had with the late amateur Rex of Bantry who extolled the beauty of that area. Dick decided to move to West Cork and first lived in Durrus for a number of years before moving to Skibbereen. Dick was well known by the Amateur Radio Community and was very active in the nineties. His voice would often be heard on R6 chatting not only to the old regulars but also to the new and the young amateurs to whom he gave much encouragement. He regularly attended the Cork Radio Club Rally in Blarney. Dick was also very active on HF and was especially fond of 80 metres. It was on this band that he would chat to old mates in Scotland. In more recent years he used to take part in an early morning net on 40 metres regularly without fail. In spite of being blind Dick had a very inquisitive mind and was a mine of knowledge. There was very little about anything about which he did not know and he had a hunger and a thirst for knowledge. Dick will be sadly missed by all the amateur radio community. Our deepest sympathy to June, Pamela, Irene, Marina and Rikki on their sad loss. He shall never be forgotten. ______________________________________________ 80 metre Counties Contest The Jubilee 80 metre contest took place on New Years day and was a great success with a big participation. Some stations had very high scores. Some stations achieved the required numbers for the Jubilee WEIC award. Counties heard were Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan,, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow. A welcome feature this year was a high level of support from across the water, with English, Scottish, Welsh and Isle of Man stations appearing in the logs. No doubt many participants were aiming at the Special Jubilee Year Worked EI Counties Award, and many will have qualified for this award on the first day of the year. It was also the first time that the special call EI75IRTS was used, operated by IRTS president, Rev Finbarr Buckley EI1CS in Cork. The IRTS would like to thank all stations for taking part, and would encourage the sending in of all logs to “contests at irts dot ie” or direct to EI8IU at QTHR as a special Certificate of participation will be sent to each station who sends in a log. ______________________________________________ Limerick Radio Club The January meeting of Limerick Radio Club will take place on the third Thursday i.e.18 January 2007 and not the second Thursday of January as previously announced. The venue will be the Limerick Institute of Technology, Moylish and the commencement time is 19:30 as usual. ______________________________________________ MRG VHF/UHF Challenge The results of the MRG VHF/UHF Challenge 2006, which was held last September, are as follows. In the fixed section, first place was achieved by EI2JD with 26 QSO’s on 2 metres giving 6150 points. Second place in the fixed section went to EI3ENB with 9 QSO's on 2 metres and 2 on 70 centimetres giving 1558 points. Third place in the section went to EI3GRB with 6 QSO’s on 2 metres giving 761 points. The portable section was won by EI7FAB/P with 7 QSO’s on 2 metres and one QSO on 70 centimetres totalling 1615 points. Check logs were received from EI3JD. The best distances worked during the Challenge were 524 kilometres on 2 metres between EI2JD and G6HIE. On 70 centimetres the greatest distance achieved was between EI7FAB/P and EI7FJ/P with a distance of 233 kilometres. The 2007 Challenge will be held on Sunday, Sept 9th of this year. ______________________________________________ IRTS 75th Jubilee As part of the 75th Jubilee celebrations, the sub committee is putting together a short audio visual presentation about the history of the Society. They are particularly anxious to receive copies of any audio or videotapes, including old 8mm cine clips of radio activities. They will take them in any format, copy same and return. However if you have some such material and can transfer it to digital files that will grately assist their work. Contact Seamus 8BP or Paul 2CA if you can help. ______________________________________________ Cork Radio Club With immediate effect, Cork Radio Club will move to new premises for their weekly meetings. The new venue is in the premises of the Cork Youth Film & Video Group located in the new bungalow behind the Cork Forum building on Assumption Road, Blackpool. Meetings are held every Monday night starting at 8.00 pm and new members and visitors are always very welcome. Enquiries about the club should be directed to Dick Bermingham EI6HH on 021-4545154. ______________________________________________ Region 5 Theory Classes Theory classes will commence in the Cork area on Tuesday January 16th at the Resource Centre, Main Street, Carrigtwohill. The Class tutror will be Mick Lee EI4HF and the course administrator is the IRTS Region 5 representative Dave EI4BZ. If you are interested in attending these classes, please contact Dave on 087-6290574 as soon as possible. The classes will finish in time for the next theory examination which will be held in June. ______________________________________________ IRTS 4 metre and 6 metre Shields The 4 Metre & 6 Meter shields will be presented to the leading 4 & 6 Metre operators at this years I.R.T.S. AGM. This competition is run on a calendar year basis, 1st of January to the 31st of December 2006. The scoring will be calculated as follows: Unique contacts multiplied by Maidenhead locator squares by DXCC. All modes count. Could anyone interested in this competition please send their 2006 logs to the Contest Manager, Brian Canning “brianei8iu at eircom dot net”. If you make contact with a particular station, say 5 times during the year, you can only claim this as 1 QSO. Squares mean IO51, JO63 KM78 etc. It is hoped that everyone can and will send in a log, it is easier for those that have computer logs as it takes all the hard work out of counting squares & unique QSOs. ______________________________________________ Squares table 2006 Could everyone who supported the VHF/UHF squares table during the past year … send in their final updates for 2006 to the VHF Manager “joe underscore fadden at yahoo dot com” before the end of January. Some good square scores were achieved on 6 meters this year even though conditions were poor. If you have not sent in a score for any of the VHF/UHF bands during 2006, you can still do so. ______________________________________________ South Eastern Amateur Radio Group The first SEARG Committee Meeting of 2007 will take place on Wednesday the 31st of January at 8.00 p.m. in the Roanmore Centre, Waterford. Committee members are asked to attend. As this meeting replaces the general meeting, which normally takes place on the last Wednesday of each month, there will be no general meeting for January. ______________________________________________ Theory Examination The next Theory Examination for the Experimenter's Licence will be held on Thursday the 18th of January next at 2 p.m. in the ComReg Offices, Abbey Court, Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin. Those at present studying for an Experimenter's Licence may wish to obtain a copy of the CD course Guide produced by the Society. These are available from Sean EI7CD at a cost of 5 Euro to cover registration, postage and packaging. ______________________________________________ Phoenix Rally The Phoenix rally takes place on the 4th of February 2007 in the Coolmine Community School, Blanchardstown. Admission is 4 Euro and doors open at 11.00 a.m. Doors are open at 8.30 a.m. for traders. The emphasis of this rally is on the “Bring and Buy” aspect and radio amateurs are encouraged bring along any items that they would like to part with as it is felt by the organisers that many of those who attend rallies do so with the intention of acquiring parts and second hand equipment. ______________________________________________ Rallies In addition to the Phoenix Rally, four other radio rallies are scheduled to take place during February, March and April 2007. First comes the Limerick Rally, which is in the Greenhills Hotel on Sunday the 11th of March. Later that month, on Saturday 24th of March, the Lagan Valley Amateur Radio Society holds its rally in Lisburn, while on Sunday the 15th of April the Lough Erne Amateur Radio Show takes place in a new venue, the Share Centre at Lisnaskea, Co. Fermanagh. The IRTS AGM and Rally takes place on Sunday the 22nd of April in the Vienna Woods Hotel, Cork, with the AGM Dinner on the previous night. More details of these events are in the current issue of Echo Ireland and on the "Rallies and Events" page of www.irts.ie. ______________________________________________ Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be forwarded to Mark Wall, 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 Friday in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following Sunday’s bulletin.