Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 14th February 2016
IRTS AGM 2016
Limerick Radio Club will host the 84th Annual General Meeting of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society over the weekend of 9th & 10th April 2016. The venue will be the Radisson Blu Hotel & Spa, Ennis Road, Limerick.
There are 4 Workshop Talks arranged for Saturday 9th April. The talks are free and start at 2pm sharp. Everyone is welcome.
Tickets for the Dinner on Saturday night 9th April, (7.30 for 8.00pm) cost €35 each (same as last year!) and are available from Tony EI2AW QTHR Golf Links Road, Castletroy, Limerick.
Payment can be made by cheque, money order or via paypal. Contact Tony EI2AW at telephone 061-334076 or Email condona /at/ eircom.net. A Proforma invoice will be forwarded to any person wishing to pay through Paypal.
The Limerick Radio Club Rally will be held on Sunday 10th. Doors open at 11am. Entrance fee is €5. More information is available from Simon EI7ALB on 0872858884 or kenmare32 /at/ eircom.net
For further information see www.irts.ie and also www.limerickradioclub.ie/
80 Metres Evening Contest
The first IRTS 80 Metres Evening Counties Contest took place on Tuesday last. There was good support for the event, and 23 logs have been received to date. These logs include call signs of more than 80 stations, at least half of them being active throughout most of the hour long contest. Logs should be sent to the contest manager as soon as possible.
Return of Cups and Trophies
Jim Holohan EI4HH Awards Manager, requests that the 2015 Cup and Trophy award holders return their awards as soon as possible, this makes it much easier for the Awards Committee to prepare them for the new recipients at the AGM 2016 awards ceremony in Limerick. Cups and Trophies can be returned to any IRTS Committee Member. Also, anybody who intends to enter a project for the Folan Shield (home constructed equipment) should familiarise themselves with the rules and requirements in order to avoid embarrassment to all parties on the day.
KARG Annual General Meeting 2016
The AGM of the KARG will be held on Saturday 27th February, at the Presentation School Sports Hall at 11am sharp. As usual all members should attend and non-members are also very welcome to attend. At the AGM the schedule of KARG events for 2016 will also be announced including local public events, IRTS contests, ILLW 2016, field days and topics for presentations
Dundalk Amateur Radio Society
The Dundalk Amateur Radio Society are pleased to announce that their 2m repeater, EI2CCR, is now back on air from its high site location on Clermont Cairn, County Louth. It is operational on a transmit frequency of 145.675 MHz, with the CTCSS access tone of 110.9 Hz. Reception reports are always welcome and can be made directly to any member of the Dundalk Amateur Radio Society, through the EI7DAR Facebook page or by email to repeaterkeeper /at/ ei7dar.com
DARS would like to sincerely thank all who have contributed in any way to the re-birth of EI2CCR and we look forward to providing wide area 2m coverage to the north east courtesy of EI2CCR for many years to come.
IRTS News now on EI2CCR
As from Monday 15th February, IRTS news for the North East will move from 145.400 Mhz to the Dundalk Repeater EI2CCR.
The newsreader is Tony EI4DIB and the bulletin is read at 8pm.
Tony has been getting a great number of reports after the news, often up in the 20’s and looks forward to getting even more in the future via the Dundalk Repeater.
DAR Bring and Buy Sale
Dundalk Amateur Radio Society announce that their second annual Club Bring and Buy sale will take place on Wednesday night 17th February 2016 from 8pm onwards.
The venue is the Clubhouse, 113 Castletown Road, Dundalk. Call in frequency is 145.675 MHz, with the CTCSS access tone of 110.9 Hz. The format of the sale will be anyone who has surplus gear at home (NOT SCRAP) with a low value of around €20 or less can donate it to the club on the night.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group
The 2016 AGM of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will take place on Monday 29th February 2016 at 8pm sharp, in the Roanmore Social & Sports Club, Cleaboy Road, Waterford.
All members are asked to attend and new members are very welcome
For up-to-date news about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and it’s actives you can check our website www.searg.ie and you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
World First for Amateur Radio
Last Thursday was a world first for Amateur Radio. For the last 15 years there have been voice contacts between the International Space Station and schools on the ground. Last week the first every amateur video downlink with a school took place. This allowed the school children to see as well as talk to the astronaut on board. This is the completion of a long term project involving many volunteers from across the globe. The Irish HAMTV ground station in Elfordstown near Midleton in Cork took part in the contact receiving live video on 2395Mhz along with other European ground stations. Hopefully live video will become part of routine school contacts in the future.
DX News
In February of last year Alan G4DJX who is a school teacher from St Albans demonstrated amateur radio to the pupils of a secondary school in the Gambia. This year he pays a repeat visit and will be once again active as C5DX until 19th February. He will run 100 watts to wire antennas and operate split (normally up 1). QSL to his home call.
The team who operated from South Sandwich as VP8STI and from South Georgia as VP8SGI are on their way back to the Falkland Islands where they will sign VP8IDX for several days before returning to their home QTHs. DXers worldwide are grateful to the operators who braved the dangers of travelling to these rare inhospitable islands and enabled many stations to increase their DXCC scores.
The Italian DXpedition Team will be operating as 3XY1T from Los Island off the coast of Guinea in West Africa from 18th February until 4th March. They will be on all bands 160m to 6m on SSB, CW and RTTY.
A team of 9 operators from North America will be active as A35T from the island of Tonga from 17th to 28th February. QSLs will be handled by M0URX.
A number of stateside operators will be QRV from Guantanamo Bay from 19th February to 4th March. Look for the callsigns KG4BP, KG4EU, KG4HF, KG4HP and KG4WV.
IARU Region 1 Interim Meetings
Interim meetings of IARU Region 1 Committee 4, will take place in Vienna, 15th to 17th April 2016. Committees 4 and 5 address spectrum management, band-planning and operational activities such as IARU-R1 contest rules and associated matters.
Amateur licensees in Ireland are encouraged to review the documents submitted and provide comments to the IRTS representatives who will attend the meetings. An overview of the documents is provided on the IRTS web-site at www.irts.ie/iaru-vienna
Also provided are full details of where to download the documents and how to comment. Please provide any comments you may have by 29th February 2016."
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 may be 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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