The Annual General Meeting of the Tipperary Amateur Radio Group will take place for members only on Monday the 10th of November 2003 in Raheen House Hotel, Raheen Road, Clonmel.
On Tuesday next the 4th of November members of the Group From Tipperary Cork and Kilkenny will be operating and listening for stations on 4 Metres on the Frequency of 70.2625 MHz, so if you have 4 metres give a call anytime after 8pm.
Further information on the Group and its activities are available on the groups website At www.ei7trg.org
The 2nd Mayo will be held on Sunday Nov 16 in the Belmont Hotel Knock, with doors open at 11.00 Over twenty traders have confirmed attendance including all the usual EI Traders, along with the many specialists which the Mayo rally seems to attract. These include PW, the leading independent radio magazine, with Rob Mannion the Editor available to meet readers. The club has also signed up a specialist dealer in new and used laptop computers, and two other computer dealers also confirmed.
This year Elekraft the US based manufacturer of HF kit-radios will be showing their products, and many builders of these radios will be on hand to discuss the kit building process with potential purchasers. Declan Craig EI6FR will be giving a presentation on DXpeditioning, and Brendan Minish EI6IZ will be making a presentation on PLC - power line communications.
The famous range of aluminium tubing - one of the talking points of last year's Mayo rally, will be available again this year, and a specialist supplier of valve & vintage radios is also confirmed. The club is also pleased to once again present Amateur Television amongst the exhibitors, and visitors may find the talk-in on two metres, 145.550 useful.
The location of the rally hasn't changed with breakfast and lunch available at the Belmont Hotel, along with accommodation at keen rates for rally goers.
The club has arranged a dinner in the hotel, for anyone travelling to Knock on the Saturday. All enquiries for the rally including dinner and accommodation should be sent to Padraic Baynes, the Rally Director, telephone 098 27 616 mobile 087 69 57 154. The Club will be sign posting the rally venue as usual.
If you are wondering why you may not be able to make contact on your favourite band, the answer is right out there in space. According to propagation reports from the Space Environment Center, a solar storm, centered around the largest sunspot in recorded history is responsible for the unusual radio conditions. This solar activity also resulted in bright auroras in the past week, which could clearly be observed from most parts of Ireland.
Sunspot 486 and 488 are active at present and likely to pose a continued threat of strong X-Class flares in the coming week.
Fingal Radio Club will run their very popular trip to Llandudno again this year. The date is Saturday the 8th of November leaving Dublin Port at 06.50 and arriving in Holyhead at 08.30. The return journey leaves Holyhead at 20.15 getting into Dublin at 22.00. This gets to the show at approximately 9.30 however the doors don't open until 10.00 leaving time for breakfast in one of the many Cafe's in Llandudno. The group will need to leave Llandudno at about 16.30 to allow enough time for a meal in the Old Station House in Llandudno Junction.
The cost for the day including all transfers but not entry to the show or a meal will be 60 euro. Please book early as it is anticipated that a large number are wishing to travel. Only 12 seats will be available on the bus to allow for enough room for goodies to be carried home comfortably.
Should the trip have to be cancelled or if people wish to withdraw from the trip due to bad weather only a portion of the fee can be refunded as the bus driver will have to be paid regardless. All enquires to Liam EI3HK at 01-8316266 or mobile 087 2521542.
Stations on air for JOTA were EI0NDR operating from Chanel College, Coolock; EI2DSJ operating from Dundalk; EI2SAI operating from the sailing club in Fenit; EI2SDR operating from the Scout Den in Wicklow; EI2WRC operating from the Scout Den, John's Hill, Waterford; EI4BST operating from the Community Centre in Bayside, Dublin; EI5MRC operating from the Scout Campsite in Mount Melleray, Co. Waterford; GB0FAS operating from the Scout Den, Ballymoney and GN4SIW operating from the Scout Den, Randallstown. Initial reports indicate that JOTA stations in England, Isle of Man, Italy, Finland, Holland and Germany were contacted. Best DX reported were EI2DSJ's 2 metre QSO's with JOTA stations in Holland and Germany.
All Units and Groups participating in JOTA are asked to submit reports to their respective National JOTA organisers. These will be used in the National Reports to the WOSM in Geneva. Reports should if possible include photographs and press cuttings.
The next committee meeting of the club will take place this coming Wednesday, the 5th of November at 8.00 p.m. in the Roanmore Social and Sports Centre, Cleaboy Road, Waterford. Committee members are asked to attend.
For latest information and news about the club, visit the clubs new website at www.searg.com or e-mail info@searg.com.
Phoenix Amateur Radio Club Phoenix Amateur Radio Club is planning a theory course leading to the Radio Experimenter Examination. Classes will be held in Coolmine on Thursday evenings between 7 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. For further information contact Dan Lloyd at 01-8382774 or at daniellloyd@eircom.net.
Papua New Guinea is the latest country to drop the CW requirment for access to the HF bands. The decision was taken on the 6th of October last.
HF Distance and Bearing Finder EI9CSB has informed us of a useful computer program for direction and distance finding called GEO 2005 ES. In short if you hear a Locator while listening on a band, you can enter your own locator and the one you heard, right away you have the position of the other station in Degree, Min, Sec. distance in Nautical Miles and Kilometres plus bearing in degrees. The program can be downloaded from home19.inet.tele.dk/oz1jm and is freeware. While this home page is in Danish, the keywords like Download are in English, and the program itself is available in an English language version. Other amateur programs are also available on this site.
Membership of AREN, the Voluntary Radio Communications Service, is continuing to grow and membership is becoming distributed over the country. The 2 metre local Nets and the national net on 80 meters 3.650 MHz plus or minus QRM, takes place on the first Tuesday of each month and the winter time for the HF net changes in October to 19:30 hrs local as opposed to 21:30 local during the summer months.
No special equipment or skills are needed to in order to become involved in the voluntary communications service.
Activation - The local VHF/UHF net was placed on standby by net control in the Cork area during September as a result of the activation of the local councils major emergency plan to deal with the circumstances surrounding a fire on the north side of the city. Six members stood by for twenty hours from 1600 on September 25th until 1200 on the 26th.
Training - Training manuals dealing with such areas as message handling, map reading and health and safety on major emergency sites are currently being prepared and group and individuals are to attend one-day training sessions. Anybody wishing to join these training events should make contact with the Public Service Organisers.
A 48-hour standby and call-in exercise using power provided by sources other than the national grid is planned for the near future. This is designed to prepare operators for a failure of the national grid, such as that experienced recently in the UK and in the US.
Contact can be made with the group through EI2GN at ketch@indigo.ie or on 021-4323283 during office hours or otherwise on 086-2593-005.
Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be forwarded Mark Wall EI7IS. He can be contacted on 087-6302026. News can also be submitted via e-mail to news@irts.ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services.
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