Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 1st June 2014
Echo Ireland, June 2014
The June issue of the society's journal, Echo Ireland, will be posted to members during the week. This issue includes the Annual Accounts and Committee Report for 2013, which were circulated to members at the AGM, and would be of particular interest to those who were unable to attend the meeting. Other material from the AGM includes a list of the awards presented at the meeting and photos of some of the award presentations.
In his regular column "HF Happenings", Anthony EI2KC covers recent and upcoming DX activations with some comments also on band conditions. Another regular contributor, Pat EI2HX, offers his readers "something completely different" - we'll keep you in suspense until the journal arrives in your letterbox!
Club activities covered in the June Echo Ireland include an interesting activation at Malin Head by the Carndonagh Amateur Radio Club as well as contest operations and antenna experiments by a number of clubs. Anyone aspiring to obtain an amateur station licence will be interested to read the article by Alan EI3HYB, who was licensed less than a year ago and writes about his start-up experiences.
All this, and plenty more, in the June Echo Ireland.
ComReg 5 Year Amateur Radio Licence Notification
Process
In June 2009 ComReg introduced a new Amateur Station Licensing scheme under the Wireless Telegraphy (Amateur Station Licence) Regulations 2009. Under this scheme Amateur Station licences are granted for the lifetime of the licensee with a condition that the licensee make a return to ComReg each and every five years to confirm whether the details of the licence are correct.
As such, starting next month, ComReg will commence notifying any licensees who have held their licences for 5 years, that licence detail confirmation is required and informing them how to comply with this licence condition.
Correspondence will issue approximately 2 months before the anniversary of the issue of the licence with the exception of licences issued in June and July 2009 where correspondence will issue immediately.
Correspondence will issue via email for those who have registered an email address with ComReg and by post for all others. The correspondence will provide detailed instructions to each licensee on how to make their returns which must be done via ComReg’s elicensing website and as such will require all licensees to provide a valid email address.
All queries in relation to this process should be sent to licensing/at/comreg/dot/ie.
Calling all Radio Clubs
As you may be aware EI news is an online publication issued once a month and e-mailed for any member who have signed up to receive it. We are always delighted to receive snippets of information from Radio Clubs or Groups planning to run an activity in the future. The ideal format is a small item no longer than one short paragraph and including a URL to a website or Blogspot where further detailed information may be found. These items may be sent direct to wrights1/at/eircom/dot/net and please note that the deadline is the 22nd of each month for a publication to be issued on the last day of the month.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group
The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group for the 7th consecutive year took part in the Geoparks Communications weekend which took place over the weekend of 24th & 25th May, European Geoparks week. The event was co-ordinated by Martin G3VOF of the Riviera Amateur Radio Club and awards are available for working Geopark stations including the main station GB6GEO. Many contacts were made and Mark Wall EI7IS worked some nice CW contacts on 17 metres as bands slowly opened on Sunday morning. You can follow SEARG on Facebook and on Twitter. www.searg.com
Course Guide Update – Amateur Station Licence
The Course Guide for the Amateur Station Licence Examination has recently been extended to include additional pages covering both the "Licensing Conditions" and the "Operating Rules & Procedures" sections of the course. The new pages are designed to make it easier for those preparing for the exam to study the relevant material for these topics. The Course Guide is at www.irts.ie/course (or see the "Exam Course Guide" button on the society's home page) and a zip file of the complete course is available for download at www.irts.ie/downloads - the zip file is ideal for offline viewing. A revised version of our document "Studying for the Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate", also available on the downloads page, now includes the syllabus, sample paper and recent reports published by the Examinations Board.
Tipperary Amateur Radio Group EI7TRG
The TARG now have their website back up and running again. You can follow TARG on www.ei7trg.ie, new and interesting information on what’s happening in Tipperary is posted to the site on a regular basis.
DX News
A group of 10 Belgian operators will be QRV from Albania from 5 – 15 June. They will sign ZA/homecall on 80 – 6m on SSB, PSK and RTTY.
Nobby G0VJG will visit the Caribbean island of St Lucia from 4 – 18 June. While there he will use the callsign J6/G0VJG and be active on 40 – 6m on SSB. QSL manager is G4DFI.
Gerry 7P8CC is nearing the end of his time in Lesotho. Within the next few weeks he will be packing up and returning to EI where he will reactivate his EI8CC call. He hopes to find time in the coming week to be on the HF bands as 7P8CC.
Akira JH0CKF will sign AF1Y/KH0 from Saipan from 4 – 6 June. QSL via his home call.
Darrell W7ZCK and Christi N7CAB will be active as V31DT and V31AB from Belize from 7 – 9 June. They will operate 40 – 6m on SSB, RTTY, PSK and JT65. The IOTA reference for this one is NA-180.
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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