Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 19th June 2011
Licence Examination
The next exam will be held on Thursday, 7 July, at 2.00 p.m. in the ComReg offices in Dublin. The closing date for receipt of applications to sit this exam is Wednesday 22 June. Full details including entry procedure and examination fee are available at www.irts.ie/exam or just click on the 'Licence Exam' button on the IRTS webpage.
World Castle Weekend
Scrabo Tower Activation
Bobby - MI0RYL will be activating Scrabo Tower on Friday 1st july 2011, in Newtownards using various HF Bands (propogation allowing). All details can be found at www.cashota.co.uk
QUIOLE CASTLE ACTIVATION Bobby - MI0RYL will be activating Quoile Castle, Downpatrick, on Friday the 8th July 2011 using various HF Bands (propagation allowing). All details can be found at www.cashota.co.uk
Shannon Basin Radio Club
The next meeting of the Shannon Basin Radio Club will be held Friday 1st July in Shearwater Hotel Ballinasloe 19.00 hours. More information is available from EI8IU or EI9HX at QTHR. All members are requested to attend.
Limerick Radio Club
The LRC 2m Repeater is off the air until further notice due to vandalism. The services affected are the voice repeater function, IRLP and Echolink. Club members are doing their utmost to restore the repeater as soon as possible. Significant damage has been done which will incur additional unplanned expense on the club funds. Anybody who wishes to make a contribution towards the repair can do so by sending it to Mr Tony Condon EI2AW, LRC Treasurer at QTHR.
Summits On The Air
Filip ON4TA, who has been holidaying in Ireland for the past few weeks, spent some of his time here climbing the hills with his HF and VHF gear. Filip is an avid fan of the SOTA (Summits On The Air) programme. Despite the poor weather while he was here, he managed to activate 24 Irish summits during his stay. On his final day in Ireland, Joe EI7GY joined him to co-activate Croghan, on the Wicklow / Wexford border, followed by Croaghanmoira in Wicklow. Filip and Joe operated on 2 metres, 70 cms, 30 metres and 40 metres. See www.sota.org.uk for more information on the SOTA programme.
Amateur Portable Group
EI0Z, will be active on Saturday 25th June for the museum's on the air from the "hurdy gurdy" museum the martello tower howth and the group would like to thank the crew there for giving us the use of this very unique location.
It is well worth a visit if you've never been there, and a great day out.
Sun Spot Activity
US scientists say the familiar sunspot cycle seems to be entering a hibernation period unseen since the 17th century, a pattern that could have a slight cooling effect on global temperatures. For years, scientists have been predicting the Sun would by around 2012 move into solar maximum, a period of intense flares and sunspot activity, but lately a curious calm has suggested quite the opposite.
"Enjoy our stormy sun while it lasts,” so says Victoria Jaggard of the National Geographic Daily News, recently. “When our star drops out of its latest sunspot activity cycle, the sun is most likely going into hibernation, scientists announced today. Three independent studies of the sun's insides, surface, and upper atmosphere all predict that the next solar cycle will be significantly delayed-if it happens at all. Normally, the next cycle would be expected to start roughly around 2020. The combined data indicate that we may soon be headed into what's known as a grand minimum, a period of unusually low solar activity. The predicted solar 'sleep' is being compared to the last grand minimum on record, which occurred between 1645 and 1715. Known as the Maunder Minimum, the roughly 70-year period coincided with the coldest spell of the Little Ice Age, when European canals regularly froze solid and Alpine glaciers encroached on mountain villages." – Sudden intense solar activity can disrupt shortwave transmissions, but the higher end of the 11-year sunspot cycle is generally good for shortwave, opening up propagation on frequencies from 12 to 30 MHz.
DX News
The Japan A1 Club is celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Samuel Morse by airing the call 8J1MORSE until November 30th 2011. Calls from other areas of Japan to look for are 8J1MORSE/2, 8J1MORSE/3 etc. Not surprisingly CW will be the preferred mode.
Stan SQ8X is leading a multi-national team which will be active from the island of Jan Mayen from 4 – 16 July. The callsign will be JX5O. They hope to have up to 3 stations on the air and will be QRV on 40 – 6m. More details can be found on <janmayen2011.org>
The Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha will be put on the air by Marcelo PY2KN during the period 2 – 9 July. This is a separate entity for DXCC purposes and also counts as SA-003 for the Islands on the Air Award. He will be paying particular attention to 6m during his time there.
A group of mainly Greek operators will activate the islet of Othonoi during the period 17 – 25 June. The callsign will be J48O and the expedition will count as EU-052 for the IOTA Award.
LJ2T was the callsign of the Radio Telegraphers School of the Norwegian Army’s Signal Corps from 1945 until 1982. The call can be heard again from the Signals Museum of the Norwegian Armed Forces in Lillehammer from 30 June until 3 July. The QSL manager is LA5EAA
The well-known DXer Nigel G3TXF will be on St Helena in the South Atlantic from 22 – 30 June using the call ZD7XF. As usual with Nigel this will be an all CW trip and QSLs go via his home call.
The US National Association of Shortwave Broadcasters
The NASB will team with Dallas-based transmitter maker Continental Electronics to host the first U.S. meeting of a High-Frequency Coordination Conference/Arab States Broadcasting Union conference, Sept. 12–16, in Dallas. Officially the B11 HFCC/ASBU conference, the gathering of shortwave broadcast professionals is expected to pull approximately 100 delegates from 40 countries. The NASB is encouraging shortwave professionals in the U.S. to attend to make a good showing. These twice-yearly conferences rotate among various countries. According to a release: 'This will be an excellent opportunity … to meet with the world’s shortwave broadcasters, and to discuss some of the new platforms of delivery for international broadcasting, such as the Internet, satellites, podcasts, etc. Topics dealing with programming, audience research and others are also being planned for the agenda.
Power Line Transmission Technology (PLT)
At an ITU forum discussing the problem of polluting PLT devices, Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, ITU, cautioned service providers and others against rolling out technologies conforming to specifications that do not meet ITU requirements. Concerns that home networking products using power line transmission (PLT) technology may cause interference with radio services led to a forum last week in Geneva to address the issue.
Emerging Technology:
Laser and Fiber Optics Set Net Data Speed Record
Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser. The speed reached is 26 terabits per second.
The trick was to use what is known as a "fast Fourier transform" to unpick more than 300 separate colours of light in a laser beam. Each is then encoded with its own string of information.
The technique is described in the journal Nature Photonics. The report says that at those speeds, the entire Library of Congress collections could be sent down an optical fibre in about 10 seconds. Source: www.wia.org.au
BBC News APP for Android
You can now download the official BBC News app for international audiences. Get the latest world and regional news from the BBC’s global network of more than 2000 journalists. From breaking news, to business, politics, entertainment, technology, the arts and sport, all divided into clear sections, this free app lets you watch video reports, listen to live radio and read the latest updates wherever you are.
Items for inclusion in next week’s Radio News can be
submitted via e-mail to “newsteam /at/ irts / dot / ie” for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. Urgent news items for the radio news maybe telephoned to the radio news editor, Aidan, EI7JC on 085 7100511.
Please note that items for the radio news should reach the editor no later than midday on Thursday in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following Sunday’s bulletin.
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