Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 5th January 2020
Silent Key - EI3GV
We were saddened to hear of the recent death of Brendan de hOra EI3GV.
Brendan was a very active DXer, with more than 300 DXCC entities confirmed, and also participated in a number of DXpeditions. He was a member of South Dublin Radio Club and took a leading part in club contests and other activities. Brendan was Treasurer of IRTS from 2002 to 2005 and, more recently, was one of the society's Honorary Auditors.
Brendan's other interests included hill walking, and he was one of the founding members of The Irish Ramblers' Club in 1964. He used his hillwalking experience to entice some South Dublin Radio Club members to join him on a number of mountain activations, including Lugnaquila and Galtee Mór. Brendan was also an active Worked All Ireland operator, searching out rare squares in the hills. Brendan was pre-deceased by his wife, Betty, and by one of his sons, and is survived by a daughter and two sons. May he rest in peace.
Silent Key - EI6AI
Willie Long was born on 28th April, 1935, the youngest of Robbie and Annie Long’s thirteen children. He went to Corker National School, and later attended Wesley College in Dublin. He then worked as a radio and television engineer in Belfast and Tamworth in England, before returning home to setup Long Brothers in Dunkineely.
In 1954, he met the new teacher, Olive Johnston from Virginia in Cavan who had been posted to Corker National School.
In 1958 Willie and Olive got married, a marriage that would last more than 61 years.
His hobbies included scrambling on motor bikes and fishing. He received his radio experimenter’s license with the callsign EI6AI in 1960, subsequently joined the IRTS and the RSGB, and became friends with many ham radio enthusiasts all over the world.
Due to ill health, Willie semi-retired in 1981, but was still able to travel to many ham radio events around the world, including Dayton Ohio and Friedrichshafen Germany on many occasions. He was a very familiar face at shows in Ireland, Alexandra Palace in London, and Granby Halls in Leicester. Before the days of computers, the Internet, and Sky, Willie’s experiments involved transmission of radio and television.
Willie is survived by his wife Olive, and two sons, Raymond EI9DM and Leslie EI4DU, and three sisters, Frances, Georgina and Charlotte.
He enjoyed life to the fullest, in spite of multiple serious illnesses, having spent time in ten different hospitals over a period of 50 years. Over the last six months, his health deteriorated and left him housebound in the care of Olive and a wonderful team of doctors, nurses and carers. Willie passed away peacefully on November 26th, 2019.
Limerick Clare Amateur Radio Club
The next meeting of LCARC will be held, as usual, in Limerick Institute of Technology on Thursday 9th January starting at 7:30 P.M. All are welcome.
LCARC wishes all a happy and healthy New Year with plenty of DX.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group
A reminder that the next South Eastern Amateur Radio Group meeting will be on Monday the 27th January 2020 in the Roanmore Social and Sports Centre, Cleaboy Road, Waterford at 8.00 p.m. sharp. IRTS President Jim Holohan EI4HH and Vice-President Pat O’Connor EI9HX will be in attendance. All members are please asked to attend. As always new members are very welcome to attend also.
For anyone that wishes to find out more about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and their activities you can drop them an email to “southeasternarg /at/ gmail /dot/ com” 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.
DX News
Sergey RX3AMY will be active as 8Q7MA from the Maldives until 23rd January. This is a holiday-style operation and he will be mainly on 40 and 20m SSB.
Four members of the Russian Robinson Club will sign E44RU from near Jericho in Palestine from 6th – 12 January. They will be on all HF bands on CW, SSB and Digital. QSL via Club Log OQRS.
Wolfgang DL5MAE is active as 3W2MAE from Phan Thiet in Vietnam. He will also be there from mid-February until early March.
To mark the 60th anniversary of the Republic of Cyprus members of the Cyprus Amateur Radio Society may use the prefix 5B60 during 2020 instead of the usual 5B4 prefix.
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. If you currently receive a copy of the IRTS Radio News Bulletin by email as a news reader and wish to modify your address, please inform the editor in order to have it changed on the news readers mailing list.
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