Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday July 4th 2021.
Silent Key - IARU Region 1 Vice President Faisal Alajmi, 9K2RR
IARU is saddened to announce that IARU Region 1 Vice President Faisal Alajmi, 9K2RR, died following a prolonged period of hospitalisation with COVID. Faisal had been Region 1 Vice President since the 2014 General Conference and was an energetic and active supporter of amateur radio in the Arab world and globally. He was also an accomplished and successful contester. He represented IARU in the Arab Spectrum Management Group meetings and had attended ITU World Radio Conferences on behalf of IARU. Speaking today, IARU Region 1 President Don Beattie, G3BJ, said “This is tragic news. Faisal was a valued member of the Executive Committee and of the Region 1 team. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends at this sad time”. May Faisal’s soul Rest in Peace.
South Dublin Radio Club in the "Dublin Maker" STEM Promotion Festival
Last month South Dublin Radio Club participated in the "Dublin Maker" STEM promotion festival, sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the festival was held online. If you missed this live event, video content produced for the festival is now available to view on South Dublin Radio Club's YouTube channel & includes: "Niamh learns morse code with South Dublin Radio Club". In this video, Keith EI5KO gives Dr. Niamh Shaw, one of Ireland’s foremost science communicators and STEM specialist, a light-hearted introduction to Morse code. This video is a great educational resource for anyone wishing to learn more about morse code. "Make your own radio receiver". In this video, Kevin EI3EU demonstrates how to make a Radio Receiver from mostly household items. This is a great STEM starter project & can be used to learn the basics of radio communication technology. It is an ideal project for teachers, students, and those starting in amateur radio & hobby electronics. "South Dublin Radio Club: Live Net at Dublin Maker". This video is a live-stream recording of SDRCs Sunday Morning 40m net. This video gives good insight for beginners into the practicalities of radio operation & running a radio net. An on-screen SDR waterfall is used to explain the basics of the radio spectrum and other aspects of amateur radio. Again, this video is a great resource for those wishing to learn more about amateur radio. South Dublin Radio Club would like to take this opportunity to thank club members for their effort over the two day event & to thank all the crew at Dublin Maker for their tireless work in making the event possible.
ARRL's DXCC Listings
The DXCC programme is an ARRL award programme to provide recognition for amateur radio stations that have worked and confirmed at least 100 different DXCC entities. The EI call signs included in the published lists of DXCC credits awarded by ARRL are shown on the IRTS web site. The page www.irts.ie/dxcc is updated at the end of every month, and the same data is also published in Echo Ireland, the IRTS members' journal. There were two new entrants to the EI DXCC list during June: they were Andy EI5JF and Bill EI9EW, bringing the number of EI stations in the published list to 101. Dave EI6AL, the Treasurer and Membership Records Officer, tells us that 91 of the 101 EI operators in the published list are current members of IRTS, a useful indicator of the level of participation in the national society by some of the more active EI radio amateurs involved in DXing.
Slovenian 30 Years of Independence Award
The Slovenian Amateur Radio Union will celebrate the country's 30 years of Independence by issuing a special award. It will be eligible to all amateur radio enthusiasts all over the World. For this event only, starting June 26th and until December 31st 2021, 23:59 UTC, the Slovenian amateur radio stations can use special call signs. Those will add the number »30« into the suffix. For example: S50ZZ will be S5030ZZ, S51A will be S5130A, S57XXX will be S5730XXX etc. In order to obtain the award a foreign amateur radio station must have at least 30 contacts with a S5 stations (regular and special call signs apply), out of which 10 or more with special prefixes (»30«). The use of any band/mode counts for the award. Send the log - list of contacts (date, time, call, band and mode) to the following e-mail address: scc /at/ hamradio.si. The same email also applies for any possible questions. The award will be issued in electronic form and will be downloadable as a PDF file from the website of Slovenia Contest Club.
YOTA Contest
The second session of the 2021 Youngsters On The Air contest will take place on Sunday July 18th from 1000 to 2159utc. This is a change of date from the originally announced July 17th. Over 700 logs were received for the first leg of the contest held on May 22nd and these included over 100 logs from YOTA stations where the operators had to be under 25 years of age. Congratulations to EI participants EI0YOTA, EI2INB, EI8KV and EI6KW. Radio amateurs are invited to allow young operators operate their station during this upcoming event. The full details can be found on www.ham-yota.com/contest/ or you can contact the IRTS Youth Officer Niall EI6HIB at yota /at/ irts.ie.
Galway Digital Radio Group
The Galway Digital Radio Group are currently working on a D-Star Repeater kindly donated by the West Tyrone Repeater Group in Northern Ireland and ICOM UK. The ICOM RPV4000V is a UHF Repeater and includes an ID-RC2P controller unit. This repeater was replaced with an MMDVM Multi-mode Repeater covering DMR, D-Star and C4FM. There are repairs alongside a Software and Firmware installation to carry out before this system can activated. The Galway Digital Radio Group are indebted to Billy Pollock, Philip Hosey, Eric Barker and Míceál Na Bpíob for their kind donation. D-Star is slowly finding its feet in the Galway area with a Multi-Mode Gateway presently supplying a D-Star Service. Whilst there are currently five active operators on D-Star in Galway, there are many more that have the equipment to operate on this mode. D-Star is currently operating from the Galway Multi-Mode Gateway, EI2GCD, on the West Side of the City.
Cork VHF Group Weekly Nets
VHF and UHF enthusiasts in the Cork area hold weekly nets different bands and modes on Tuesday evenings at 2100 local time. On Tuesday next July 6th it will VHF FM on 145.475MHz. On July 13th it will be UHF FM on 433.475MHz, On July 20th it will be 4 metres FM on 70.2625MHz and on July 27th it will be digital on DMR talk group 2723 with talk group- 2722 and channel 3 as backup. Everybody is welcome to join in.
On the Air next week
The International Amateur Radio Union HF World Championship runs for 24 hours over next weekend, commencing at 1200UTC on Saturday 10th July. It's a mixed-mode CW and SSB event, on all the HF contest bands. IARU member societies will be sending a signal report and the initials of their society, while others send a signal report and ITU zone ("27" in the case of EI). The IRTS Headquarters call sign EI0HQ will be activated by a team of the society's members, each operating from their own home QTH; please listen out for the EI0HQ call sign. The Straight Key Century Club hold their Monthly Sprintathon from 1200utc on Saturday next to 2359 on Sunday using straight or bug keys only. No electronics allowed in generating the code. The VHF/UHF FT8 Activity contest on 2 Metres takes place on Wednesday evening next from 1700 to 2000utc. Use standard FT8 mode and the exchange is your four character locator square.
DX news The Russian Robinson Club are mounting a DXpedition to Adak NA-039 and Kiska NA-9070 islands from June 30th to July 17th. Full details can be found on na-234.com For CW operation they will be testing SDC in a pileup mode with ExpertSDR integration, no need to call on the same (last caller's) frequencies. They will be able to see all the callsigns calling so stay on the same frequency and the operator will select from the list. This should help with the usual pile-up bedlam and increase the DX stations rate. John, W2GD will be QRV as P44W from July 6th to the 13th. Activity will be as time permits on all bands. This includes being a CW only entry in the upcoming IARU HF World Championship contest. QSL via N2MM. Bo, OX3LX is reported to be operating from Greenland until July 10. Side trips to NA-151 and NA-220 are included. Operation on HF and 6 metres.
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.
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