Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 11th October 2020
Silent Key Dominic Curtin EI9JS
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dominic Curtin EI9JS at The North West Hospice, Sligo, on Tuesday October 6th. Dominic had been ill for some time, but despite his illness he was active on the HF, VHF, UHF and SHF bands during the summer and could also be heard regularly chatting on the Mayo repeater. Dominic was a long-time member of the Mayo Radio Experimenters Network and was very involved with the club on activations and contests and he attended all radio rallies throughout EI/GI. He also took turns at reading the IRTS news on Sunday night's at 9pm on the Mayo Repeater. He will be greatly missed by his family, friends and all club members. His funeral is on Tuesday next October13th at 11am in St Colman’s Church, Derrinacartha, Co. Roscommon with burial afterwards at the Church of Ireland cemetery, Green Street, Boyle. Dominic's funeral will be live streamed on Higgins and Sons Undertakers Facebook page. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family, relatives and friends. May he Rest in Peace.
IARU Virtual General Conference 11th to 16th October
The International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 General Conference should have been starting in Novi Sad in Serbia this Sunday morning but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is now being held as a virtual conference on-line. The Opening Plenary of the 2020 Conference took place at 0700z today Sunday 11th October. The Irish Radio Transmitters Society are being represented by a strong team headed by our President Jim EI4HH and supported by Joe EI3IX our VHF/Microwave Manager, Liam EI4GB our EMC manager and Niall EI6HIB our Youth Officer. Dave EI3IO is attending as Chairman of the Spectrum and Regulatory Committee and Séamus EI8BP is Chair of the Political Relations Committee. The conference finishes with a plenary session on Friday the 16th. We wish them all a successful conference.
Mid Ulster ARC Tuesday Night Lecture
The Mid Ulster ARC Tuesday Night Lecture Series have now moved from weekly to twice monthly on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. Their next lecture will be on Tuesday next the 13th of October at the regular time of 7pm with Peter LB0K on the topic of an interesting transmitting location for a Norway club. Tuesday 27th is their last one of October with Bob Henderson 5B4AGN on the topic of Band Pass Filters As always everyone is welcome and for any further questions or information and the Zoom link, email Dave 2i0SJV at dcparkinson /at/ icloud.com
Scouting Annual JOTA/JOTI
The 64th annual Jamboree On The Air/Jamboree On The Internet, the world’s largest digital and radio Scout event promoting friendship and global citizenship takes place next weekend the 16th to 18th of October. Marty EI2IAB will be active with scouts in Longwood, Co. Meath using call sign EI3JOTA. They will be on HF, VHF and UHF and are also hoping to catch a QSO with the International Space Station repeater on Saturday and Sunday Niall EI6IHB, youth officer IRTS, is also planning to be in attendance. Sean EI3IP will be active with scouts in Rathdowney, Co. Laois using the callsign EI2JOTA on HF and VHF and Conor EI4JN will be active on HF and VHF with the 31st Cork Scout Troop in Lissarda, Co. Cork using his own callsign. JOTA frequencies on CW are 3.560, 7.040, 14.00 and on SSB 3,650, 7,080, 14280, 21,350 and 28.225.
IRTS Contest News
The IRTS 80 metres Evening Counties Contest on Tuesday last was well supported and the logs received to date, which are listed at www.irts.ie/logs include QSOs from more than 50 EI and GI stations in 22 counties, plus more than 70 overseas stations. Logs should be sent as soon as possible to irts/dot/contests/at/gmail/dot/com. For those listening to this transmission on Sunday, the final IRTS contest of the year takes place at 12:00 UTC today for one hour: this is the 40 metres Counties Contest, see www.irts.ie/contests for more details. SD which is available from www.ei5di.com can be used for logging IRTS HF Counties Contests. We also understand that TR4W - which is a Windows adaptation of the well known DOS program TR Log - has a module for IRTS HF Counties Contests. Both of these programs are available free.
Limerick Clare Radio Club
LCARC took delivery of a tilt over mast from Air Mast on Saturday 3rd October. It is very well constructed with an excellent finish. The materials used are all top class. They also built the rotator cage and gave our rotator the once over so that it looks like new. Thanks to Sue and John of Air Mast, the on-site works of erecting the mast went without a problem. Each stage in the assembly, erection and operation was very well explained by John. Overall, the project has been a very pleasant experience.
Thanks to the efforts of Dermot EI2GT, Steve EI5DD and Ivars EI4KP, the Limerick City Gateway EI2LCG went live on Sunday the 4th of October. The Pi-Star Simplex Gateway, installed at EI4KP's QTH, is now up and running on 144.8625MHz. The gateway operates on DMR, D-Star and C4FM. The Gateway will automatically operate on the mode that it receives. For example - Transmit DMR and the Gateway operates DMR, transmit C4FM and the Gateway will operate on C4FM and Transmit on D-Star and it will operate on D-Star. The Gateway defaults to YSF Ireland on the C4FM Mode, TG 2724 on the DMR mode and DCS 049 I on which Northern Ireland Activity Occurs. It is recommended that DMR users do not connect to TG 91 Worldwide, as this is a very busy channel that is impossible to disconnect from once linked. Similarly, those using D-Star should avoid Reflector 001 C, as this is extremely busy also.
South Dublin Radio Club
South Dublin Radio Club continues it's weekly club meetings on Tuesday nights from 20:00 - 22:00, via Zoom. All are welcome to join. Please direct message them via their website, Twitter & Facebook accounts for login details. They are currently lining up presentations & talks for some Tuesday nights over the next few weeks, please stay tuned to their social media channels & IRTS News for details. Their daily 2m net on 144.330MHz SSB from 20:00 to 21:00 local time continues, as does their weekly Sunday 40m net on 7.123MHz SSB from 08:30 local time, followed by IRTS weekly news at 11:00.
On the Air next week
The Stew Perry Top Band Distance Challenge runs for 24 hours from 1500z on Saturday the 18th on CW only and you may only operate for a total of 14 hours. The exchange is your four character grid square. The Worked All Germany Contest on CW and SSB runs for 24 hours from 1500z on Saturday the 18th and participants should check the rules on darc.de as contest free band segments are specified to avoid interference with JOTA stations. The JARTS Japanese sponsored RTTY Worldwide contest takes place over 48 hours on Saturday and Sunday the 18th and 19th. The exchange is the operator’s age.
That’s the news for this week. Items for inclusion in next week’s radio news can be submitted by email to newsteam/at/irts/dot/ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The deadline is midnight on Thursday. Urgent items for the radio news may be telephoned to 087-6290574.
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