This Week's News

Irish Radio Transmitters Society
Radio News Bulletin
Sunday 29th January 2012

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IRTS AGM & Rally 2012

The IRTS AGM, Annual Dinner and Rally this year is
hosted by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society at the
Fairways Hotel on the weekend of April 21st & 22nd
2012. Please keep your diaries free for this special
event in our 80th Anniversary year celebrations. More
details to follow.
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EI80IRTS Certificate

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society was founded 1932
and we are proud to celebrate our 80th anniversary in
2012. As part of the celebrations the Society will be
using the special callsign EI80IRTS. A special
certificate, available to all amateurs and SWLs, is
being offered to celebrate this occasion. Contact the
special call EI80IRTS during the period of January 1st,
2012 to December 31st, 2012.

A very attractive certificate for working EI80IRTS is
sponsored by Dundalk Amateur Radio Society, and details
can be seen at http://www.ei7dar.com/ei80irts.html
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IOTA Contest Results

Provisional results of the 2011 Islands On The Air
contest have now been published. Despite low
sun-spots levels, the contest organisers received
over 2,300 logs - the highest number yet - covering
632,000 QSOs and sufficient to enable them to
adjudicate 75% of all QSOs.

The highest scoring station in the contest was the
Bristol Contest Group (GJ6YB) who operated from Jersey
and achieved a score of just under 15 million points
from over 3,300 QSOs. The Bristol Contest Group were
also the IOTA contest winners in 2010.

Irish stations submitted 21 contest logs and one check
log. The full provisional results for EI and GI
stations are on the IRTS web site - see Contest Results
page or the link on the home page. The highest score
was achieved by the EI/GI group on Rathlin Island, with
a total of 2.7 million points from 1,606 QSOs. Other
groups had higher QSO numbers, but the Rathlin group
had a better mix of multipliers and island stations.
There are also some excellent results from stations in
the Single-Operator categories.

The IOTA contest is one of the best supported contests
in Ireland. The 2012 contest takes place on 28th /
29th July. The contest organisers have indicated that
there will be a number of significant rule changes in
2012, notably to the scoring to emphasise island QSOs
and, for the same reason, there will no longer be a
World multi-op category as they are anxious to refocus
the contest on working islands rather than building
points through non-island stations working other
non-island stations.
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85th Armenian Anniversary

In honour of the 85th anniversary of DOSAAF of Armenia
from January 21 to February 1, radio amateurs of
Armenia will work using call sign of a special prefix
EK85. QSL cards for QSOs with special stations should
be send to the address of QSL-manager EK7DX. (
www.qrz.com )

The electronic version of the diploma "85 years of
DOSAAF of Armenia" shall be issued for the QSOs and
SWLs with special stations on different bands,
including WARC bands, using different types of
modulation CW, SSB and Digital. For obtaining a
diploma you have to dial 5 QSO / SWL. Applications
must be mailed to the address of the manager: ek7dx
/at/yahoo / dot/ com
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Declan EI9HQ

Declan will be out on Sunday 12th February on a run to
Kilkenny starting around 0930 in WAI Square Oscar22. He
will be on 7.170mhz. Anyone looking for squares from
this route please email before 10th February at ei9hq/
at/ O2/ dot/ ie.
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RAOTA

RAOTA, the Radio Amateur Old Timers Association is
looking for more members and will have a stand at the
Lough Erne Rally on Sunday 1 April. RAOTA seeks to keep
alive the pioneer spirit and traditions of the past in
today’s amateur radio. Its friendly gatherings and nets
on the bands, the hundred issues to-date of its
quarterly journal, OT News, and RAOTA’s other
publications amount to an important, historic and
technical treasure of amateur radio lore, that remains
pertinent today.For more information visit :-
www.raota.org gi0lec.blogspot.com

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WRC-12 Gets Underway

The opening of the World Radiocommunications Conference
(WRC-12) got under way in Geneva on Monday last and
will continue until 17 February. More than 3000
delegates from over 150 countries are represented.

The work started with the election of various
committee and working group chairpersons. Brennan
Price, N4QX, the ARRL Chief Technical Officer and a
member of the US delegation was elected Chairman of
the Sub Working Group which will be dealing with
agenda item 1.23 on a secondary allocation to the
amateur service around 500 kHz.

The IARU is well represented at the conference and of
course many countries, including our own, have licensed
amateurs as members of their national delegations.

In addition to item 1.23 on 500 kHz the other agenda
items of particular interest to radio amateurs are:

1.15 to consider possible allocations in the range 3 to
50 MHz to the radiolocation service for oceanographic
radar applications

2.19 to consider regulatory measures and their
relevance, in order to enable the introduction of
software defined and cognitive radio systems

3.22 to examine the effect of emissions from short
range devices on radiocommunications services.

We will try to keep you informed of developments on 500
kHz as news develops.
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Cork Radio Club

Cork Radio Club will meet in the River Room at the
Commons Inn, New Mallow Road in Cork City at 8.00 p.m.
on Monday February 6th. Computer logging in the shack
will be the theme of the meeting and some popular
logging packages will be demonstrated and evaluated.
The 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic is
being marked by several special event stations at ports
associated with the ships maiden voyage. These include
Belfast, Southampton, Cherbourg, Cobh, Cape Race,
VO1MCE and a maritime mobile station, VE0MGY at the
site of the sinking. The special call sign EI100T has
been issued for the year 2012 and Cork Radio Club
members will operate the station from Cobh throughout
the year. The main event will happen over the weekend
of April 13/14th and everyone is encouraged to visit
the special event station over that weekend in Cobh.
Information on EI100T from Cormac EI4HQ QTHR. Further
information on Cork Radio Club is available from Jeremy
EI5GM on 083-3317710. Visitors and new members will be
very welcome at the Commons Inn on February 6th.
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Limerick Radio Club

The Annual General Meeting of Limerick Radio Club will
be hold on Wednesday 8 February 2012 in the Limerick
Institute of Technology at 7.30pm and all paid up
members are requested to attend.

Rally: Limerick Radio Club rally will be held on Sunday
March 11th 2012 at the Radisson Blue Hotel on the Ennis
Road, Limerick. Doors open at 11am and all the usual
traders will attend. Bring and Buy tables can be
ordered from Dermot Gleeson EI2GT.
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South Dublin Radio Club Talks

Following Joe EI7GY's interesting talk on the DXCC
programme Colin McKeeman will give a talk on
aeronautical radio communications on the North Atlantic
on Tuesday 31st January

The club plans on launching it's television repeater
for Dublin at the Phoenix Amateur Radio Club Rally
in February.
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DX News

A group of Italian amateurs will be active from the
Indian Ocean island of Mayotte from now until 5th
February. The callsign is TO4M. As well as being a DXCC
entity this one counts for the Island on the Air Award
with reference AF-027. QSL manager is IK5CRH.

An international team will air the callsign HU2DX from
El Salvador from 29 January until 10 February. The
usual prefix in El Salvador is YS so this operation
will also be of interest to prefix hunters. The QSL
manager is DH7WW.

Two Japanese amateurs will operate as TO3J from the
Caribbean island of St Barthelemy from 1 – 6 February.
They will be active on all bands 80-6m using CW, SSB
and RTTY. QSL info is via JA1HGY.

For those who still need the DXCC entity of the ITU HQ
in Geneva look out for 4U1WRC from now until 17
February. This call is active from the 4U1ITU station
during the ITU World Radio Conference 2012.
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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.