Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 7th February 2021
Silent Key EI6CB
We regret to report the death on Sunday last January 31st of Cornelius, Neily Connolly of Skibbereen, Co. Cork. While not active in recent years, Neily was a very well known radio experimenter and many amateurs from home and abroad will have been welcomed over the years at his shop and home in the centre of Skibbereen town. We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife Ellen, son John EI6CMB and his other sons and daughters, relatives and friends. Neily was laid to rest in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Skibbereen on Wednesday last. May he rest in peace.
SDRC Tuesday Night Lecture on Ham Radio Logging
South Dublin Radio Club continues its Tuesday night lecture series via Zoom and on Tuesday next February 9th at 2000, SDRC club member Keith EI5KO will give a presentation on "Ham Radio Logging" focused on current developments regarding logging formats and the use of related online resources. All are welcome to join! Please direct message the club via their website, Twitter or Facebook accounts for login details. The South Dublin Club 2 metre net on 144.330 MHz SSB continues daily from 20:00 to 21:00, as does their weekly Sunday morning 40 metre net on 7.123 MHz SSB from 08:30 followed by the IRTS radio news read by Joe EI6EG at 1100.
Request for nominations for IRTS Awards.
The IRTS Awards Committee is seeking nominations for “Awards for Services to the Society or to Amateur Radio” and for “Awards to IRTS Members for other achievements”. The winners in the above categories would normally be presented with their inscribed trophy/shield in person at the AGM. However, due to the Corona-19 virus pandemic the trophies/shields will be inscribed but will not be distributed to the winners except where a winner specifically requests delivery of same. It is important that our fellow experimenters and operators whose work and effort on behalf of each one of us and for the Society be recognised and rewarded. Please send your nominations for specific awards to the Awards Manager to - holohaj2 /at/ hotmail.com
French UVSQ-SAT launched on January 24th.
A SpaceX falcon 9 rocket launched on Sunday January 24th carried a new record number of 143 small satellites to space. One of them was France's UVSQ-SAT satellite carrying an FM amateur radio transponder. This satellite is focusing on broadband measurements of Earth Radiation Budget and on Solar Spectral Irradiance in the Herzberg continuum. Amateur radio operators are being encouraged to contact the satellite as well. Toward this end, AMSAT-Francophone is providing hams with software to receive, interpret and upload telemetry to the AMSAT-F server or the SatNOGS database. The software runs on both Linux and Windows platforms.
UKEI Contest Club 80m Evening Contests
Looking back to last Wednesday evenings UK EI Contest Club’s one hour SSB contest on 80m, we congratulate Enda EI2II on being the leading EI station for the second month in a row followed by Aidan EI8CE and Andrew EI8KF in second and third places. Martin EI2IAB was the leading EI low power station with EI5G, operated by Peter EI7CC in second spot and Paul EI3ENB in third place. Fifteen EI station submitted logs, an increase of five from the January event and there were quite a few participants who did not submit their logs. Congratulations to all who supported the event. The next UKEICC monthly event will the February CW Contest on February the 24th running as usual from 2000 to 2100. Logs must be submitted by 2100 and the results will be published an hour later. This is a lovely contest all wrapped up in one night. The free SD contest logging programme by EI5DI is an ideal way to log this contest. Download it from EI5DI.com.
Finnish Amateur Radio League SRAL celebrate 100 years.
The Finnish Amateur Radio League, SRAL, was founded one hundred years ago in 1921 and today caters for around three and a half thousand members. It is the IARU affiliated society for Norway and runs the licensing examinations, the QSL bureau, co-ordinates repeaters and beacons and represents Finnish amateurs with their licensing authority Traficom plus all the other duties of a national society. To mark the 100th anniversary of SRAL, they are running the 100 Years Award. To qualify, you must work and confirm either by QSL card or Logbook of the World, one hundred different stations from Finland during 2021. A special anniversary call sign OH100SRAL will be on the air throughout the year. See sral.fi for all the details.
On the Air next week
The big contest next weekend is the CQ Worldwide RTTY WPX contest running for forty-eight hours from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. Single operators may only operate for 30 hours in total. The multipliers in this one are prefixes and the exchange is signal report plus serial number. EI scoring records in both multi-single and multi-two are held by EI7M while the single operator high power record holder is Gerard EI5KF. The single operator low power record for EI was set in the year 2000 by Ken EI4DW. The single operator assisted high power record is held by EI4KI and the assisted low power is held by Peter EI9ES. Various single band records are held by EI3CTB, EI3GC, EI3GRB, EI6JK, EI6KD, EI7KD, EI8GXB, EI8IU and EI9HQ, Why not have a look at the records on the CQWW website and see if you too can be a record holder for EI. Also on next weekend, is the Dutch PACC Contest in both CW and SSB and it runs from 1200 on Saturday to 1200 on Sunday. The exchange for non-Papa Alfa stations is signal report plus serial number. An interesting contest for Top Band operators is the Japanese KCJ contest next weekend running from 1200 Saturday to 1200 on Sunday. Rules are at kcj-cw.com. This coincides with the RSGB 160 metre contest which is held from 1900 to 2300 on Saturday the 13th. Now some DX news: From February 7th to the 28th look out for special event station IQ3DD who will be on air from the Alpine Ski World Championships in Cortina, Italy. Members of the Kuwait Amateur Radio Society will operate 9K60NLD throughout the month of February. This is a special event station celebrating Kuwait's 60th National Day, which is February 25th, and Liberation Day, which is February 26th. QSL via 9K2RA. Also, all Kuwaiti amateur radio operators are allowed to use the special prefix "9K60" during February.
SEARG News Broadcast Record
This IRTS News Bulletin, as you heard in the preamble to this bulletin, is also broadcast by clubs on their local repeaters in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Mayo and Waterford on VHF and UHF every week. Last Tuesday’s South Eastern Amateur Radio Group’s broadcast by newsreader Sean EI2HZB on the Southern Ireland Repeater Network attracted a record number of amateurs calling in with a report on the transmission. In total, 53 callsigns were logged by Sean with a further 31 listening on the SIRN Zello App., 8 on Echolink and 17 on the Ireland Southern Radio Room on the Zello App. 16 counties were represented, with calls also from the USA, Spain, and Wales. The Southern Irelands Repeater Network currently provides seven VHF/UHF analogue linked voice repeaters plus four UHF digital repeaters capable of DMR, Fusion, DStar and Analogue modes. They also provide six APRS nodes on 144.800MHz covering a significant part of the southern part of the country. Thanks to repeater keepers Neil EI3JE and John EI8JA and their team for providing and maintaining such a widespread network for all our benefit. Full details of all their installations are available on sirnblogspot.com. There are no membership fees or mandatory contributions but appreciation for the service could be expressed by a PayPal donation.
That is 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 news may be telephoned to News Editor Dave EI4BZ on 087-6290574.
[A]
