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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 27th January 2019


IRTS Committee

There are several vacancies on the IRTS Committee for 2019/2020. This is an opportunity to support amateur radio and to get involved in the work of the national society. Please contact Jim EI4HH for more information, contact details are on www.irts.ie The closing date for expressions of interest is Monday 18th Feb 2019.


Dates and Venues for next IRTS Committee meetings

Date of March meeting set for 2nd March Athlone. Date of May meeting set for 25th May Portlaoise.


Celebrating 50 Years of Radio News Bulletins

To mark the 50th anniversary of the first IRTS Radio News Bulletin, Jim EI2BB (one of the readers of the first IRTS Radio News Bulletin in 1969) read the 80 metre news on Sunday last.

Jim started off by reading the text of the original bulletin from 1969 and followed this with the current week's news script and the call-ins.

A full report of this event will be included in the next issue of Echo Ireland; in the meantime, for those who missed Jim's transmission, www.irts.ie/1969news has the audio file of Jim reading the 1969 bulletin; this file was recorded by Dominic EI9JS.


Assessment for CW

Just a short reminder that assessment of CW will be carried out at the following rallies over the coming months.

The first will be Coolmine on February 17th, then there will be Limerick on March 10th and also at the IRTS AGM in Athlone on April 14th.

Booking for these tests is essential and intending candidates should contact Dave EI4BZ on 087-6290573 or by email “davebeag /at/ gmail /dot/ com”. Full details of the Morse test are available on the IRTS web site under licensing at www.irts.ie


South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

South Eastern Amateur Radio Group January meeting will take place on Monday the 28th of January 2019 in the Roanmore Social and Sports Centre, Cleaboy Road, Waterford at 8.00 p.m. sharp.

This is the 1st meeting of the new year and all members are asked to come along. New members or anyone interested in learning more about amateur radio or the group are as always very welcome to attend.

For anyone who wishes to find out more about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and their activities you can drop them an email to “info /at/ searg /dot/ ie” or please feel free to come along to any of their meetings. You can check out their website www.searg.ie and you can also join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.


Shannon Basin Radio Club

Shannon Basin Radio Club AGM will be taking place on the 30th January at 20:00 in The Roscommon Sub Aqua Club Rooms in Roscommon Town. All members are requested to attend and anyone wishing to join the club is welcome. Refreshments will be available.

For more information see www.shannonbasinradioclub.com or contact EI8IU “brianei8iu /at/ gmail /dot/ com”


IECRO Ireland Radio Club

The next meeting of IECRO Ireland will be taking place in Mullingar on Saturday 23rd February 2019. At this meeting an introduction to ham radio will be provided to those interested in becoming licensed. If you, a friend or a family member have been considering amateur radio as a new hobby for a while, why not make 2019 the year you obtain your callsign?

The club would like to help by guiding you through the process and they aim to ensure you are properly prepared for the assessment. If you are interested in attending, please submit a “Join a Training Course” request using the international IECRO support portal at https://support.iecro.com

Several topics will also be discussed including the clubs planned automated VHF-HF FM crossband service. All of the clubs automated stations are going to be powered totally by environmentally friendly solar and wind power. The club is pleased to announce that its first Digital Voice service has been on the air now for the past week. So far it has been running DMR. This is still early days for the system and some technical issues are being worked around at the moment on it to ensure stable operations. Once the system is known to be stable, other DV modes will be introduced including C4FM.


Kerry Amateur Radio Group

KARG are pleased to announce that they will be QRV during calendar year 2019, using the special event call EI-100-YXQ. This call will commemorate the centenary of the first voice transmission across the Atlantic, in an East-West direction, from Ballybunion County Kerry to Louisbourg, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The original call used from the former Marconi radio station in Ballybunion was YXQ.

On the anniversary date of 19th March 2019, KARG will be QRV from the site of the former Marconi radio station in Ballybunion, where an open day is planned to include a number of lectures and demonstrations.

KARG invites expressions of interest from any EI ops to air the call throughout 2019. Please contact Declan EI9FVB for further information.


DX News

Ali EP3CQ is expected to be QRV in Somalia as 6O1OO from now until 6th February. Ali works with the UN and any amateur radio activity will be in his spare time. He was in Somalia last November working on FT8 and this time hopes to do SSB as well. QSLs go to an address in Rome, Italy and details can be found on qrz.com.

The world traveller Vlad UA4WHX turned up in the Seychelles in the past number of days signing S70VB. It is not known how long he will be there. QSL instructions can be found on the UA4WHX qrz.com page.

A three-man team will operate from two different Papua New Guinea islands in the next couple of weeks. Look for P29VCX from Manus Island (IOTA OC-025) from 31st January – 5th February. This will be followed by P29NI from Daru Island (IOTA OC-153) from 6th – 11th February. QSL requests should be sent directly to SM6CVX in each case.

PJ4/WW4LL and PJ4/NN9DD will be active from the island of Bonaire from 4th – 10th February. They will operate on FT8, RTTY and SSB. During the CQ WPX RTTY Contest (9th/10th February) they will use the callsign PJ4Z.


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, Mark EI6HPB on 086 355 2370.

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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