Archived News Script

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 10th June 2012


Silent Key

The death has occurred of Jackie Buckley EI9EJ of Finuge, Lixnaw, Co. Kerry on Monday 4th June 2012. Jackie will be sadly missed by his radio friends in Co. Kerry and further afield. The Kerry Amateur Radio Group are deeply saddened by his passing. Ar dheis De go raibh a anam dilis.


Licence Examination Final Reminder

Next Thursday, June 14th is the closing date for entries to sit the next Amateur Station Licence Examination which will be held in the ComReg Offices in Dublin on Thursday, 28th June at 2 p.m. Full details, including entry procedure, examination fee and how to pay the fee on line are available by clicking on the Licence Exam button on the IRTS homepage at www.irts.ie Please note that it is necessary to download the application form from the web page and forward the completed form and the appropriate fee in order to secure a place for the examination. If you pay the fee on line it is still necessary to complete and forward the application form. We wish all those sitting the examination the best of luck.


Change in 40 Metre News Frequency

The present 40 metre radio news frequency has become increasingly busier on Sunday mornings. This has lead on occasions to some difficulty in the reception of both the bulletins and the reports on the transmissions. It has been decided, therefore, to move the transmission of the 40 metre news to a new frequency of 7123 kHz on and from Sunday the 1st of July. This frequency was selected after monitoring a range of frequencies over a period of time by amateurs who use this particular transmission of the radio news bulletin.


Gene Zimmerman W3ZZ SK

Readers of QST will be sorry to hear of the death on Sunday last, 3rd June of Gene Zimmerman W3ZZ. Gene wrote the popular QST column 'The World Above 50 MHz' from 2002 to 2011. Over the years he worked more than 140 DXCC entities on 6 metres, 38 States on 144 and 220 MHz and held the VHF/UHF Century Club (VUCC) on the 50 to 1296 MHz bands. Gene was first licensed in 1956 and held an Amateur Extra Licence since 1963. May he rest in peace.


CW Field Day

We heard just two EI stations participating in last weekend's CW Field Day - Shannon Basin Radio Club (call sign EI3Z/P) and Gerard EI5KF/P. Shannon Basin Radio Club operated from the grounds of Garbally College, Ballinasloe; they report that despite occasional generator and computer problems they achieved a very satisfactory result, with more than 900 QSOs in the log.

Gerard EI5KF operated from a site near Glocca Morra in the Kilworth Mountains, North Cork. He reports that the real contest was the weather, as he was operating from a tent in a night of wind and rain. With a modest set-up his log includes QSOs with DX stations in JA, VK, ZL, A6 and 9M among others. The principal support for this contest comes from IARU Region 1 countries: many other field day stations were active in the UK and in Germany, with smaller numbers in some other European countries including Switzerland, Ukraine, The Netherlands and France.


Radio-Frequency Identification

At a recent South Dublin Radio Club meeting, Daniel EI9FHB gave a talk on radio-frequency identification (RFID) - a system that uses radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to exchange data with travel cards, access cards and many other identification tags. He demonstrated some of the technology behind these systems and referred to some of the security weaknesses in them - these weaknesses being due in part to the ability to pick up very weak signals from a distance, an aspect of radio frequency propagation that would be familiar to many radio amateurs.


HAM CON

The Northern Ireland Amateur Radio Conference takes place Saturday 16th June /at/ Technology Education Centre, Omagh, BT78 1FA. Registration from 11am, Conference begins at 12 noon with John Breen EI7BV on "How did Amateurs get their bands: The VHF, UHF, SHF &EHF Bands" Further details at gn4oma.blogspot.co.uk


OK1WC Memorial activity

This activity runs on the first 4 Mondays in the month (2m, 6m, 80m SSB, and 80m CW in turn), always from 16:00 to 17:00 UTC. There is no need to work any specific country. Score on the VHF is based on QRB (1km=1 point) with no multipliers, on HF each QSO counts one point; multipliers are the last letters of the wkd stations suffixes. All details are included in rules at www.hamradio.cz/ok1wc/rules_en.txt


DX News

Charles NK8O will be travelling to Tanzania this month on a work assignment and has been issued with the callsign 5H9CP. He prefers CW operation and will be active from 11 – 22 June. His QSL Manager is EA7FTR and logs will be uploaded to Logbook of the World.

Vlad UA4WHX was recently active as E40VB from Palestine. He is now QRV again from Egypt and using the callsign SU9VB. Please read his QRZ.com page for up to date QSL information.

The rare DXCC entity of Mount Athos was heard recently on CW. The resident amateur Monk Apollo SV2ASP reports that his call was pirated on 24 April, 8 May and 17 May. He was however active on 17m CW on 26 May from 1130 – 1700z and on 27 May from 1030 – 2000z. Please check your logs.

To celebrate one hundred years of Amateur Radio in Queensland, Australia a special event callsign of VK100WIQ will be aired until the end of July. Various clubs in Queensland which are affiliated to the Wireless Institute of Australia will activate the special callsign during that period.


Fatima Shrine Activation

Members of the Amateur Radio Association of the District of Leiria (ARAL) will activate CS5FAT from its facilities in the Cova da Iria at the Shrine of Fatima in Portugal between June 10-13th


Items for inclusion in next week’s Radio News can be submitted via e-mail to “newsteam /at/ irts / dot / ie” for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. Urgent news items for the radio news maybe telephoned to the radio news editor, Aidan, EI7JC on 085 7100511.

Please note that items for the radio news should reach the editor no later than midday on Thursday in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following Sunday’s bulletin.

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