Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 22nd June 2014
Course Guide Update – Amateur Station Licence
The Course Guide for the Amateur Station Licence Examination has 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.
Revitalised VHF Squares Table on IRTS Website
Steve, EI5DD is now the VHF Manager for IRTS and he advises us that a revitalized version of the VHF Squares Table will appear on the IRTS Web Site. Traditionally, the Squares Table runs from January to December and therefore if any VHF operator would like to be included in the Squares table, they should send their totals for each month commencing January 2014. For those who have not participated before, the squares tables show the number of Maidenhead locator squares (e.g. IO63, IN88) worked by EI operators on bands 50 MHz, 70 MHz, 144 MHz, 432 MHz, 1296 MHZ, and 10 GHz. Contacts via repeaters or satellites do not count, and no QSLs are required.
Reports about VHF & UHF Openings and other relevant information would also be appreciated for inclusion in a Month by Month Report for Echo Ireland. Obviously the success of this will be entirely dependent on contributions from VHF & UHF enthusiasts.
The information should be sent to Steve EI5DD at wright14 /at/ gmail.com.
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.
United Kingdom and Ireland Contest Club (UKEICC)
A group of dedicated and committed amateur radio operators have set up the United Kingdom and Ireland Contest Club. Membership is open to anyone interested in HF contesting. A dedicated website is now up and running on www.ukeicc.com Online membership registration is free.
Bangor and District Amateur Radio Society
Bangor and District ARS will hold their annual summer rally on Satruday 5th July 2014. The event will be hosted in the Donaghadee Community Centre, County Down. Doors open at 11.30am.
Voice Repeaters in Ireland
A comprehensive list of voice repeaters and internet gateways in Ireland is easily available from the IRTS website on www.irts.ie/repeaters
Orchard County DX Club
Orchard County DX Club will be holding an amateur radio Foundation course for any one wanting to learn more about this fun hobby and gain a Licence. The course will commence in Craigavon on Tuesday 24th June and is open to any age or ability.
For more details or to register please go to ocdclub.webs.com or contact our Exam secretary, Bobby on 0044-7841621816.
DX News
Three Russian amateurs hope to be QRV from Morzhovets Island as RI1O (Radio India One Oscar) from 23 – 27 June. The IOTA reference number is EU-119. Morzhovets Island is located in the White Sea and so the operation is weather dependant. QSL Manager is R1NU.
Harry AA2WN will be active from the island of Bonaire as PJ4/AA2WN from 22 – 27 June. He will be active all bands 40 – 10m on SSB and CW. QSL to the home call.
John W5JON and his XYL Cathy W5HAM will be QRV from their home at Calypso Bay on the Caribbean island of St Kitts until early August. Look for the callsigns V47JA and V47HAM. Logs for both calls will be uploaded to Logbook of The World.
Six metre enthusiasts who need Grenada for their DXCC should keep a look out for J38DR between now and 1 July. The operator is W9DR and he will be QRV on 50115 SSB and 50115.6 CW.
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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