Archived News Script
IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 22 January 2023
Silent Keys
Anthony Riggs, EI1240, SK
The sudden death occurred of Anthony Riggs EI1240 from Lavally, Tuam, Co Galway, on Thursday, the 5th of January. Anthony was an avid radio enthusiast, a SWL member of IRTS since the early 1990's, and also very active on 11m and PMR 446. We send our deepest condolences to his Mother Maureen, Brother Raymond, and to Anthony's extended family and his friends in the Galway CB Radio Club.
James (Jimmy) Tighe, EI8GD, SK
James, husband of the late Mary Tighe and predeceased by his brothers Mattie and Johnny, sister Ethna, father of Jacqueline, Rosemary, Matthew and Patrick will be sadly missed by his siblings Charlie and Rosemary, his extended family, good neighbours, and friends. Reposing in R. Healy and Son Funeral Home, Pollerton Castle, on Monday from 4pm. to 7pm. Removal on Tuesday morning to St. Fintan's Church, Ballinabranna, to arrive for funeral Mass at 11am. Burial afterwards in the adjoining cemetery. May James Rest in Peace.
South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC
The January meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will take place on Monday, the 30th of January 2023, at 8pm sharp at the New Community Men's Shed, Ozanam Centre, Coffee House Lane, Waterford. Although the Ozanam Centre has no Eircode, it is located directly behind the St. Vincent De Paul shop on Henrietta Street which has the Eircode X91 FEK1, making it a good starting point for anyone who might be interested in coming along, but isn't sure how to find our new location. New members, or anyone interested in learning more about amateur radio or the group are as always very welcome to attend.
Members of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will be QRV as EI2IMD on Saturday April 22nd for the International Marconi Day 2023. The station will be active from Tramore, Co. Waterford. Tramore has a direct connection with Marconi as he often stayed there with his aunt Mrs. Cookman who resided at the Cove, Tramore. Special thanks to the organisers the Cornish Radio Amateur Club for organising this special event. More details will be made known in the coming days on the SEARG Facebook and EI2IMD QRZ pages. For more information on the International Marconi Day please see www.gx4crc.com
To find out more about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and their activities you can drop them an email to southeasternarg /at/ gmail.com or please feel free to go along to any of their meetings. You can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also find them on Facebook.
Limerick Clare Amateur Radio Club Rally 2023
The LCARC Rally 2023 will take place in the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis, Co. Clare, Eircode V95 H0XK on Sunday, the 26th of February 2023. The doors will open at 11am. The usual traders, including Long Communications, AirMast, and MakerShop will be in attendance, and LCARC welcomes the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group SEARG to the Rally. Tables for the rally can be booked by contacting Dermot EI2GT with an email to dermotgleeson1 /at/ gmail.com . Also, individuals can email Dermot if they wish to have a list of their items for sale published on the LCARC web site at www.limerickclareamateurradioclub.ie . On the Saturday night the IRTS Shortwave Listeners Club will be holding their informal dinner in the Hotel. Those wishing to make reservations with the Hotel for Saturday night can do so by contacting them at info /at/ templegatehotel.com or telephone 065-6823300. When making reservation for Saturday night please quote the reference number 84187 to get special Rally rate at 99 Euro for single occupancy, and 109 Euro for double occupancy. Dinner in the Dining room is for 35 Euro, and Bar food is also available. The Rally and the Saturday night events are open to anyone with an interest in Radio or associated interests. More information will be posted on the web site in the lead up to Rally.
SWL wins Young Scientists of the Year
SWL Shane O'Connor from Kildysart, Co Clare, along with his teammate Liam Carew were announced as the winners of this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the RDS in Dublin. Shane and Liam, both aged 18 and in sixth year in the Abbey School in Tipperary won with their project Assessing the impact of second-level education on key aspects of adolescents' life and development. The pair will also represent Ireland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists in Brussels in September, and at the 64th Annual London International Youth Science Forum this summer.
The AM Rally
The AM Rally, an annual celebration of this mode will take place on HF from the 3rd to the 6th of February. It's not necessary to have a boat anchor for full carrier amplitude modulation. Modern radios, including software-defined rigs, as well as military radios, modified broadcast radios and home brew models are capable of helping operators take part in this event. Information about logging your contacts and noting your rig and your output power class can be found on the website amrally.com . There are suggestions on how to prepare, as well as a guide to where and when you can find the most active AM action going on, from 6m to 160 meters. AM cannot be used on 60 meters in the United States, however.
ARISS
Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts between amateurs operating in schools, and allowing students to interact with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. The down-link frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz worldwide. The cross-band repeater continues to be active. If any crew member is so inclined, all they have to do is pick up the microphone, raise the volume up, and talk on the cross-band repeater. An Astronaut's typical daily schedule is organised around a 12 hour work day. The crew's usual waking period is 07.30 to 19.30 UTC. The most common times to find a crew member making casual contacts are about one hour after waking and before sleeping, when they have personal time. They're usually free most of the weekend, as well. For more information about schedules, frequencies and modes, please visit www.ariss.org and www.amsat.org
WRTC
The World Radiosport Team Championship is an on-site ham radio competition held every four years. Previous WRTCs have been held in Seattle in 1990, San Francisco in 1996, Slovenia in 2000, Finland in 2002, Brazil in 2006, Russia in 2010, Boston in 2014, and the last one in Germany in 2018. The 2022 event in Italy was postponed, now taking place on the 8th and 9th of April of this year. Many special event stations are already on the air announcing the upcoming World Radiosport Team Championship . Here are two in particular to listen for as they operate in Indonesia and New Zealand until the end of the month, currently audible during mornings with good signals and even better operators. Listen for 8BØRARI, the Indonesian Amateur Radio Organization ops are active on 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m, using Morse and SSB. ZL6WRTC already logged just shy of one million QSOs during the first three weeks of January, probably an all-time record.
HF Contests
CW operators will be busy on Wednesday evening, starting at 19:00 UTC with the one hour duration CW-Ops Test on the 160 to 10m contest segments, then switching to 80m for the UKEICC CW contest, from 20:00 to 21:00 UTC. Starting an hour later at 22:00 UTC, and running for twelve hours, the Australia Day Contest on 160 to 10m CW, SSB and digital modes will be worth checking out. Maybe not for a serious entry, but as an opportunity to get a few VKs, ZLs and P2s into the log. The CQ World-Wide 160-Meter Contest will be the first big CW event of the year, the 'Gentleman's Band' CW segment will be packed from 22:00 UTC on Friday, until 8:00 UTC on Sunday, a good opportunity to catch exotic prefixes.
The Propagation Horoscope
An acoustic technique called helio-seismic holography is used to find out what is going on on the far side of the sun. As the sound waves bounce around the interior of the sun and are reflected back and forth, they are encoded with information about unseen regions. This information can then be used to build maps of the sun's far-side and effectively reveal strongly active regions on the opposite side of our star. This is then combined with observations from ESA's telescopes parked at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points, giving us more reliable predictions, thought impossible during previous solar cycles. The re-emergence of last weekend's highly active region and the intensity of the C and X flares fireworks that followed was no surprise. We now see a disturbed magnetic field with kP values ranging from 3 to 5, likely to stay in that range given the numerous flares seen. It's worth noting that since the Sun awoke for cycle 25, no major X-ray flare and no CME has been directly Earth-bound. For now, all higher bands produce excellent DX, although the MUF varies strongly from day to day. In the absence of geomagnetic disturbances the lower bands benefit from good winter night propagation, especially during morning grey-line.
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.ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services.
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