Archived News Script

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday April 15th 2007


IRTS 75th Annual General Meeting

The Society’s 75th Annual General Meeting is to be held next weekend at the Vienna Woods Hotel in Cork. The weekend celebrations will follow the usual format with the 75th Jubilee Dinner being held on Saturday the 21st of April. Several high profile international guests will attend the dinner and AGM and included are Dave Sumner K1ZZ, Secretary of the International Amateur Radio Union and C.E.O. of the ARRL, the American National Society. Also joining us will be the Chairman of Region 1 IARU Ole Garpestad LA2RR and the Presidents of several other sister national societies in Region 1.

The AGM rally will be held on Sunday April the 22nd at the Vienna Woods Hotel and requests for tables should be directed to Dave EI4BZ on 087-6290574. There will be no charge for tables, which will be allocated on a “first come first served” basis.


Rallies

The Lough Erne Amateur Radio Show will take place on Sunday the 22nd of April at the Share Centre Lisnaskea Co. Fermanagh. The Bangor Rally will take place on the 17th of June and the Friedrichshafen Hamfest will take place over the weekend of the 22nd to the 24th of June.


South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

The Theory Classes at the Roanmore Centre which were run by South Eastern Amateur Radio Group are now complete. A further two revision nights will be held in the Centre in June just prior to the exam. Dates of the revision nights are to be confirmed and will be announced here soon. Information will also be available on www.searg.com


International Marconi Day

The 28th of April is International Marconi Day and the Cornish Amateur Radio Club sponsors a radio event and presents awards for working the special event stations. All IMD special event stations have historic connections with Marconi. The Howth Martello Radio Group will be activating EI0MAR as a special event award station on the 28th.

In 1905 Marconi carried our wireless telegraphy reception experiments at the Martello Tower. The HMS Monarch steamed to various locations in the Irish Sea and sent test transmissions back to Howth. Various antennas and earthing methods were tried at the Martello Tower and comparisons made. The Howth Group is justifiably proud of its association with the tower, which now houses a vintage radio museum. The museum opens from 11 till 4 on weekends until the end of April and from May until October every day. The museum website is ei5em.110mb.com/museum.html. Visitors will be most welcome to visit and operate the station on International Marconi Day. EI0MAR is QRV most Sundays until 3 p.m. For more details you can email “ei0mar at eircom.net”. Access to the tower is up a steep pathway opposite the Abbey Tavern.


2 Metre Counties Contest

Please note that the deadline for receipt of logs for the 2 metre counties contest on the Easter Bank Holiday weekend is the 9th of May.


Second EmCom Party on the Air

IARU Region 1 invites the HQ-stations of its member societies and stations of special emergency communication groups to participate in the "Second EmCom party on the Air" on Saturday, May the 5th, 2007 at 11.00 - 15.00 UTC. The operation will take place on and near the emergency Center-of-Activity (CoA) frequencies on 40, 20 and 15 meters (+/-QRM). The CoA frequencies on 80 and 17 meters will not be used during this event.

The objective of the party is to increase the common interest among member societies in emergency communication, test how usable the CoA frequencies are across Region 1, and create practices for international emergency communication between Region 1 member societies and special emergency communication groups.

Please keep in mind: This is not a contest - it is an emergency communications exercise!

The protocol is as follows: All traffic during the party will take place in SSB only. IARU Region 1 HQ station will be OF3F in Finland. It will be QRV simultaneously on the three CoA frequencies: 7060, 14300 and 21360 kHz +/- QRM.

During first three hours each participating station will try to contact OF3F and also as many other national HQ and special group stations as possible. During the last hour, (14.00 - 15.00 UTC) these stations will contact only OF3F for reporting. The report should be sent only once, on the band on which communication with OH3F is best. All traffic in the party will happen on SSB.

For creating a more realistic situation, please limit your transmitting power during the exercise to 100 watts. A special value is given to stations operating mobile/portable and/or on emergency power.

Greg Mossop G0DUB has kindly agreed to collect all information and to prepare a final report. Please send your comments and logs to Greg at: “gregm at greg-mossop.co.uk”. The final report will be published in August 2007.

A third EmCom Party is planned for the 17th of November 2007, with new rules and procedures.

More information including the exchange format is on the news page of www.aren.ie


West Tyrone Amateur Radio Club

The West Tyrone Amateur Radio Club will Be Holding a Meeting on the 26th of April at 8.00 p.m. in the Omagh Leisure Centre.

All amateur radio operators and Short Wave Listeners welcome to attend. It is intended to reform the club that had existed in the West Tyrone area for many years. Ultimately it is the intention to raise the profile of the hobby and provide a learning environment for existing Amateurs and those wishing to find out more about the hobby.

For more information, E-mail; “westtyrone_arc at yahoo.co.uk”. Leave your details with Eddie GI7FHZ, Billy GI3NVW or Charlie GI6DCC


Theory Examination

The next Theory Examination for the Experimenters Licence will be held on Thursday the 28th of June next. Places for the examination are limited and will be allocated on a “first come first served” basis. In order to reserve a place for the exam, intending candidates should forward the appropriate fee to Seán Nolan EI7CD, 12 Little Meadow, Pottery Road Dunlaoghaire, Co. Dublin. The fee is 50 Euro or 25 Euro for full time registered students, those who are retired, are unemployed or have a disability. In addition to the exam centre at the ComReg offices in Dublin, it has now been decided with the agreement of ComReg that an examination should be held on the same date and with the same paper at the Community Centre, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork. This is to facilitate those at present attending classes for the experimenter licence examination in Cork and Waterford."

The closing date for the examination is the 16th of June and it will be strictly adhered to. Sean EI7CD's address again is 12 Little Meadow, Pottery Road, Dunlaoghaire, Co. Dublin and it can be found in the call book section of the IRTS website at www.irts.ie Sean's e-mail address for further enquiries is "ei7cd at gofree dot indigo dot ie".


Isle of Man, Special Event

From the 25th of May to the 6th of June Mike Bryant (GW6NLP) and Colin Kenton (MW0JNI) will be running a Special Event Station, in association with Scarlett Point Amateur Radio Society, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Isle of Man TT races. They'll be based at Scarlett Point Tower in Castletown, on the southern most tip of the Isle of Man, this was home to Wrexham ARS' successful SE station in 2004 and the return in 2005

They'll be running with the callsign GB100TT. They plan to operate from HF through to 2 metres (SSB only) running with 5 elements on 6, 13 on 2 - and a Cushcraft vertical for HF, and possibly some dipoles that SPARS have up at the moment. They'll only be running with 100 Watts, however the uniqueness of the callsign guarantees they'll be busy.

A full operating schedule will be on either Wrexham ARS' website, or the Scarlett Point website hopefully this will be finalised nearer the time.

Wrexham ARS' website is located at: www.qsl.net/wars and Scarlett Point ARS is at www.scarlettpoint.com

For any further info, please e-mail Colin Kenton: "colin at kenton65 dot plus dot com".


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.

[N]