The web page of the IRTS expedition travelling to Swaziland, 3DA0, in March is now available on the IRTS website. Plans are well advanced and the team have announced that in addition to all band activity on St Patrick's day, they will be concentrating on the WARC bands and LF frequencies at other times. There is also a possibility of some 2-metre EME activity. It is intended that during the expedition there will be daily updates from the site to the web page as well as on online log check so that you can confirm that you are in their log. We will be carrying regular updates on this bulletin between now and the start of operations.
A reminder to members that the outwards and inwards QSL service is available free to IRTS individuals and club members for their own call and for special event stations licensed to them. The service is also available free to JOTA stations, irrespective of whether an IRTS member is the licence holder. Please note in particular that operators of Special Event stations should supply details of their Special Event call to the relevant incoming QSL Manager.
Contact details for the outwards and inwards QSL managers and sub-managers are on the IRTS web site.
The Phoenix rally takes place on the 4th of February 2007 in the Coolmine Community School, Blanchardstown. Admission is 4 Euro and doors open at 11.00 a.m. Doors are open at 8.30 a.m. for traders. The emphasis of this rally is on the “Bring and Buy” aspect and radio amateurs are encouraged bring along any items that they would like to part with as it is felt by the organisers that many of those who attend rallies do so with the intention of acquiring parts and second hand equipment.
In addition to the Phoenix Rally, four other radio rallies are scheduled to take place during February, March and April 2007. First comes the Limerick Rally, which is in the Greenhills Hotel on Sunday the 11th of March. Later that month, on Saturday 24th of March, the Lagan Valley Amateur Radio Society holds its rally in Lisburn.
The IRTS AGM and Rally takes place on Sunday the 22nd of April in the Vienna Woods Hotel, Cork, with the AGM Dinner on the previous night. More details of these events are in the current issue of Echo Ireland and on the "Rallies and Events" page of www.irts.ie
Preparations (even at this early stage) are underway for the Cork Radio Rally which will take place at the same venue, Blarney Park Hotel. This will be the 16th year that the Cork Radio Club have run this very successful rally. Blarney is a wonderful venue for this event and many bring their families along to experience the shopping in Blarney.
So make a note for this event in your dairy. The Blarney Rally will take place on Sunday the 23rd of September.
The Cork Radio meets every Monday night at the "Cork Foyer" Assumption Road Cork at 8:30 p.m. Enquiries about the club should be directed to Dick Birmingham EI6HH on 021-4545154.
The first SEARG Committee Meeting of 2007 will take place this coming Wednesday the 31st of January at 8.00 p.m. in the Roanmore Centre, Waterford. Committee members are asked to attend. As this meeting replaces the general meeting, which normally takes place on the last Wednesday of each month, there will be no general meeting for January.
In the UK, the Radio Frequency and Time Signal service which was until now provided by the National Physical Labortatory will be provided by an external company from the 1st of April 2007. The service is transmitted on 60 kHz and provides time and frequency standard. VT communications will build new infrastructure to deliver the signal from it's facility in Cumbria. The new infrastructure will include time code generation equipment, remote control and monitoring system and a new Low Frequency Transmitter.
Since the 14th of January AO-27 is once again recovered and returned to operation through the dedicated work of the Command Team.
It is reported that after working on several problems with the AFSK modem, they were able to upload the flight code. AO-27 is now sending good telemetry and the Analogue repeater has been switched back on.
Initially there is 20 seconds of telemetry data followed by 5 minutes of analogue repeater operation. Then an additional 60 seconds of telemetry data is sent before the satellite transmitter turns off. Keep in mind that AO-27 is 13 years-old and takes some work to keep going. Additional information is available at www.ao27.org
Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be forwarded to Mark Wall, EI7IS at QTHR or by phone to 051-853806 or 087-6302026. Items for the radio news can also be faxed to 087 5 6302026. News should be submitted via e-mail to “news at irts dot ie” for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. Please note that items for the radio news should reach the editor no later than midday on Friday in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following Sunday’s bulletin.
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