Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 16th March 2014
IRTS 82nd AGM Dinner & Rally March 22nd, 23rd 2014
Next weekend the 2014 AGM Dinner and Rally takes place in Salthill, Galway. There is a cut off date of next Wednesday March 19th for dinner tickets as the hotel needs final numbers. Dinner tickets are available by contacting Steve, EI5DD on 087-2451218, QTHR and you may also contact John EI1EM on 086-8154979. Tickets are just 35Euro.
Galway VHF Group promises this years trade show will be well supported with a wide variety of equipment from regular and many new traders not seen before at Rallys. If anyone wishes to take a table it will be necessary to pre-book your table to avoid disappointment. All exhibitors will be charged the entrance fee for the trade show which is 5 euro per person manning their stand. Individual traders will be charged the same rate. The Bring and Buy stand will be manned by Jimmy Kelly, Padraig Baynes from the Mayo Club and Arthur from the Galway VHF Group.
There will be a raffle at the Rally with a Begali Key as first prize, which has a special engraving to mark the occasion.
Accommodation is available from The Galway Bay Hotel, (Tel:091-520520) at a discounted rate when you mention the IRTS AGM. The Rockbarton Park Hotel (Tel: 091-522286) also offers discounted rates, 49Euro for a single room and 35Euro per person sharing. For complete details please refer to www.irts.ie/cgi/agm.cgi
Amateur Station Licence Examination
The next Amateur Station Licence Examination will be held on Thursday, 22nd May in the ComReg Offices in Dublin. Full details, including entry procedure, examination fee and how to pay the fee on line are available at www.irts.ie/exam . Please note that it is necessary to download the application form from the web page and forward the completed form and the appropriate fee so as to secure a place for the examination. If you pay the fee on line you must still complete and forward the application form. The closing date for receipt of completed applications is Wednesday 30th April. Three Exam Reports which were previously published in Echo Ireland are now available on the Downloads section of the website at www.irts.ie/downloads These reports contain very useful information for anyone studying for the Licence Examination
New Counties Contest
The Society runs four Counties Contests every year, two on HF (80 metres) and two on VHF (2 metres). The success of the 40 metre radio news, given the number of call-in stations to that service, shows that this band is also very popular with members, so the Society has decided to pilot a 40 metre Counties Contest this year: the date is Sunday 18th May, from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC and there are sections for fixed stations and portable stations, using SSB only or both SSB and CW; there is also a section for Shortwave Listeners. As with the existing counties contests, the 32 EI and GI counties are multipliers.
In order to encourage overseas participation in our HF Counties contests, a separate award is available in each section for overseas entrants. It is likely that callers to EI and GI stations may be interested in Worked All Ireland details, so participants are advised to have their WAI square information to hand.
See www.irts.ie/contests for more details, including the Rules and the deadline for logs. Note in particular the rules about frequencies and modes.
St. Patricks Day on Air
Bobby MI0RYL, writes to inform us that a group of Northern Ireland Amateurs will be on air on March 17th. The day runs from over the full 24 hour period of the 17th March (0000 UTC - 0000 UTC). If you wish to participate as an award station or for more information on how you can gain the award please look at stpatrickaward.webs.com
Live Television from the International Space Station
A group of Dublin based radio experimenters have been busy testing their equipment for receiving live television pictures from the International space station.
The first transmissions were due to start around 1:30pm Saturday 8th of March during a pass over Europe and within seconds the Dublin team was picking up a signal. On later passes Sunday morning more signals were picked up and recorded. They are fine tuning the setup and taking measurements. School children will soon get to view the astronauts live while making contact via an amateur radio network of volunteer ground stations chained across Europe. It is hoped by chaining together multiple stations and handing over from one to the next a total conversation time of 15 minutes can be achieved which would not be possible with only one location.
More details on the tests including recording of live video showing the astronauts aboard the space station can be found on the Ham TV project facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/Hamtvproject
Declan EI9HQ
Declan EI9HQ/EI45WAB will be on a mobile run, Sunday 23rd March heading to the IRTS AGM, leaving his QTH at approximately 7am and transmitting on 7.160MHz to 7.170MHz.Look out for him on the band.
DX News
A group of Polish operators, SP2FUD, SP6AXW, SP6CIK, SP9FIH and SP9WZS, will be QRV from the British Virgin Islands from 19 March – 1 April. They will sign VP2V/home call and will be found on all bands 160m – 6m on SSB, CW and RTTY.
Seven British amateurs will operate from Raivavae which is one of the Austral Islands which are part of French Polynesia. The Austral Islands count as a separate DXCC entity and Raivavae counts as OC-114 for the Islands on the Air Award. The DXpedition will run from 20 March until 1 April on all bands on SSB, CW and RTTY. QSL manager is G3TXF.
The West African country of Burkina Faso will be on the air between 21 and 26 March. Calls to look for are XT2AEF, XT2IVU and XT2VWT and they will be found on all bands 80 – 10m.
The rarish DXCC entity of the Andaman Islands will see a one-man expedition on the air from 23 – 30 March. The operator will be Krishna W4VKU who will sign VU4K from Port Blair. Activity will be on 40 – 10m SSB and RTTY. QSL to the home call
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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