Archived News Script
IRTS RADIO NEWS BULLETIN Sunday June 28th. 1998
Limerick Radio Club
Members of Limerick Radio Club provided emergency radio communications for the annual triathlon held on Saturday June the 20th in Kilkee, County Clare.
The event was very successful and no mishaps were reported. The following club members were in attendance: Tony EI9IL, Eamonn EI5AJ, Mike EI6AXB, John EI5FAB, Neilus EI5FPB, Tadhg EI5FMB and John EI5FOB.
IRTS Committee Meeting
The next IRTS Committee meeting will be held in Athlone, at a new venue, the Shamrock Lodge Hotel, on Saturday July the 11th at 2.30pm.
Clubs are again reminded that they may send a representative to this meeting.
Four Metre First
Amateurs in Slovenia, S5 got permission to use the 4 metre band, that's 70MHz, with effect from June the 13th last. John Desmond EI7GL worked S57A at 1341 on Thursday June the 18th for an EI to S5 first on this band.
The last first on this band was claimed by John EI6AK when he worked ZB2VHF on June the 16th 1967.
Packet Developments
PacketCluster is now well established in EI with cluster nodes in Dublin, Donegal and Cork. The link to the outer world is through Dublin into Anglesey and onwards from there into the UK and the rest of Europe.
For some time now, the link from Dublin to Cork has been poor and in an effort to improve the situation, the East Cork Group with the co-operation of Limerick Radio Club recently installed a new 4 metre digipeater on the old Limerick repeater site.
This has improved the situation greatly and further improvements are expected when the proposed new digipeater is installed in Dublin by the Dublin PacketCluster group.
PacketCluster is a realtime network for the immediate distribution of DX related information. A station connects to his local node and stays connected for as long as is required.
When an operator hears a DX station, he may notify all others connected to the network by inputting the callsign and frequency of the DX into his local node. This information is immediately retransmitted to all stations connected to the network.
Personal mail and DX related bulletins may also be forwarded through the cluster. One of the better aspects of Cluster is the ability to have a live keyboard QSO with fellow cluster operators.
Further information on PacketCluster can be got from any of the system operators, that's Declan EI6FR in Dublin, John EI8IR in Cork and Ken EI8DW in Donegal.
Canada Day Contest
Each year on July the 1st, the anniversary of Canada's Confederation, Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC) sponsors the Canada Day Contest. Amateurs all over the world are invited to take part in Canadas birthday party.
The event runs from midnight to midnight utc on Wednesday next on all bands from 160 to 2 metres excluding the WARC bands on both CW and phone. Canadian stations will give signal report plus province or territory and all others will give report and serial number.
QSOs with Canadian station are worth 10 points with 20 points for QSOs with any of the 13 official station with RACin the suffix. All other QSOs are worth 2 points. Multipliers are the 10 Canadian provinces or territories. The full rules are available from the news team.
VHF/UHF Field Day
The annual VHF/UHF Field Day will be held next weekend, July the 4th and 5th and we make the usual appeal to EI stations to dust off the VHF and UHF rigs and give those taking part a shout.
We have no definite news of the exact number of entrants this year but interest has been growing in recent years and given a fine weekend we should have quite a few stations on the hills.
The action begins at 1400utc on Saturday next and continues for the following 24 hours.
Marconi Weekend in Dundalk The Dundalk Amateur Radio Society is holding a weekend on the air in Clogherhead over next weekend July 3rd, 4th, and 5th. This event is to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Rathlin Island Experiments of 1898. The station, which will use the callsign, EI1OOM (Echo India One Oscar Oscar Mike) will be active on all amateur bands, from HF right up to UHF.
The station has set up an e-mail address which can be used to gain information on the event and a copy of the transcripts of Marconi's diary of that event back in 1898 will also be available by e-mail.
The e-mail address can also be used for SWL's who would like their report and name called out on the air. All SWL reports received by e-mail will be called out on the hour every hour. The e-mail address is ei1oom@tinet.ie
All visitors to the station will be very welcome. You do not have to be an amateur to visit. There will be a special treat for Scanner enthusiasts. All will be revealed next weekend.
Anybody needing information on the event can contact the club secretary at the following address: Marconi House, 113 Castletown Road, Dundalk, Co. Louth or via the above e-mail address.
Items for inclusion in the Radio News can be faxed to 021-632730 or passed on the telephone to Dave EI4BZ at 021- 632444 during the day and at 021-883555 in the evening. Input for the Newsletter should be sent to Kevin EI7IM at QTHR or on 01-4509514 or on E-mail to EI7IM@tinet.ie All input to either the Radio News or the Newsletter can also be sent by e-mail to news@irts.ie
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