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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 25th September 2016


Silent Key - Terry Barnes GI3USS / EI8BH

The death has occurred of Terry Barnes GI3USS & EI8BH, peacefully, in Bangor County Down, in his 85th year. Terry was a Past President of RSGB, and a founder member of the Bangor and District Amateur Radio Society in 1967. He served as treasurer of the Society continuously for some forty-five years.

There will be a Service of Thanksgiving for his life on Tuesday next, 27th September, at 1pm in Hamilton Road Presbyterian Church, Bangor - followed by cremation at 4pm in Roselawn Crematorium.

May he rest in peace.


Contest News

Results of the SSB Field Day Contest, held over the weekend of 3rd & 4th September, have been published. The Contest Results page at www.irts.ie/results has links to these results. Five EI stations participated in the contest, with some reporting reasonable conditions on most bands, except 10 metres, which offered only brief openings towards the end of the contest.

The next IRTS contest is the 40 metres counties contest on Sunday 9th October, at 12:00 UTC, for 3 hours. This contest has fixed and portable sections, for SSB only and for SSB/CW mixed mode entries. See www.irts.ie/contests for more details.


Licence Examination Report

The IRTS Examination Board publishes reports from time to time, which include observations on the standard of answering in the HAREC exams, along with advice for those studying for future exams or tutoring exam candidates. The latest examination report was included in the September issue of Echo Ireland. This report, along with previous reports published in 2007, 2010 and 2014, respectively, is included in an updated version of the document "Studying for Harmonised Amateur Radio Examination Certificate" available at www.irts.ie/downloads - the IRTS web site's downloads page. As well as the examination report, this document includes the exam syllabus, notes for candidates, four pages of annexes containing key information very relevant to the exam questions and a sample paper.


South Dublin Radio Club

Dah dit dah dit , Dah dah dit dah, Morse classes will continue at South Dublin Radio Club. Run by Joe EI7GY, anyone attending is asked to bring a pen and paper.

Passing the Morse test allows existing Radio Experimenters to move from a 3 letter call to a 2 letter call.

It may also allow operating in countries where Morse is still a requirement. Classes will take place in a separate room allowing the usual tea drinking and chat to continue for everyone else. It starts 8.30pm sharp every Tuesday at the Community Centre at the Marian Road in Rathfarnham. All welcome. Booking not required.


Award for Dave Deane EI9FBB

Congratulations to Dave Deane EI9FBB who was recently presented with the prestigious Clipperton award of Distinction.

This was awarded for exceptional services to the hobby after organising 3 Brand New IOTA activations along with several other rarer IOTA groups. The award was presented during Clipperton's 38th convention in Brest, Brittany last weekend where Dave was also one of the guest speakers.

He was nominated for this award after giving a remarkable IOTA presentation during the Ham Radio fair in Friedrichshafen earlier this year.


International Space Station

Daniel Cussen of the South Dublin Radio Club will give a talk on “Amateur Radio Satellites and receiving live video from the orbiting International Space Station” next Monday, September 26th at 8pm. The venue is Ely House, 8 Ely Place, Dublin 2. This is a free event.


JOTA

The Scout Jamboree on the Air, JOTA, takes place next month on the weekend of 15th and 16th October. Scouting Ireland and IRTS are making a special effort to increase activity and a number of radio clubs and individual operators have already indicated their intention to take part.

Activity can be for the whole weekend, just one day or even a few hours. This is a really worthwhile activity for both Scouting and Amateur Radio and will help promote the hobby particularly amongst teenagers and young adults.

If you can help out either by hosting some scouts at your station or giving a hand at the local club station please contact Paul EI2CA QTHR or mobile 087 2523908. There is a particularly active and enthusiastic scout group in Ashbourne County Meath who want to team up with a club or individual operators. They are well resourced and have a premises in the town complete with a mobile antenna tower. Let us know if you can help.


DX News

Several Polish operators will be QRV from Central Kiribati from around 4th October for about 4 weeks. The callsign will be T31T and they will be on all bands 80m to 6m. Their main purpose is to train some of the locals in the use of Emergency Radio Commumication systems. QSLs go via Club Log OQRS.

Stan LZ1GC and Emil DL8JJ will operate as H44GC from the Solomon Islands until 3rd October. Look for them on all bands 160m to 10m on CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL Manager is LZ1GC.

The ongoing DXpedition by Tom KC0W next moves to Western Kiribati where he will operate as T30COW from 25th September until 24th October. As before this is a CW only operation and QSLs go directly to KC0W.

A group of 5 New Zealanders will be active from Norfolk Island as VK9NZ until 8th October. They hope to have 3 stations operating simultaneously. QSL to ZL3PAH and logs will also be uploaded to Logbook of The World.


Cavan EI2LLX Crossband Repeater

Ronnie EI9ED is testing a digital radio, DMR - repeater from EI2LLX site in Cavan. The repeater will beacon a digital audio transmission every 10 minutes, to facilitate signal and audio quality checks.

The DMR radio will further be connected to the 2meter Cross Band Repeater at a later stage. The DMR beacon transmit frequency is 430.975. Reports please, to Ronnie on the Dublin and Cavan repeaters.


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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