This year the 81st IRTS AGM is hosted by Shannon Basin Radio Club. The event takes place in the Shamrock Lodge Hotel in Athlone, Saturday April 27th and Sunday April 28th 2013. Tickets for the Dinner on Saturday night (8.00 for 8.30pm) will be available at 30 Euro each from Brian EI8IU QTHR and through IRTS Committee Members. Dress code, as usual, is smart/casual. Menu details is available from the IRTS website. Please visit www.irts.ie for more details.
The Deadline for the submission of logs for the 2 Metres Counties Contest is Monday 15th April 2013.
The IRTS Technical Panel is a group of volunteers who have expertise in, or experience of, different aspects of amateur radio. The e-mail address irtstech /at/ irts.ie is a single point of contact for communicating with the Panel. Our aim is to help radio amateurs with technical or operational problems.
Send your question to irtstech /at/ irts.ie. Provide as much information as possible, including details of attempts already made to deal with the issue in question.
Members are reminded that the closing date for nominations for the posts of President, Vice President & Committee, under rule 23.2 of the IRTS Constitution is 14 days before the AGM, which is today, Sunday 14th April 2013, under rule 23.3 of the constitution. The list of nominations is in the latest edition of Echo Ireland. If you have any nominations please get them in now.
Congratulations to Joe EI5EV who completed the first satellite QSO between EI and Cuba by working Hector CO6CBF on 3 April via FO-29. The distance involved was 6955 km and there was a window of only 66 seconds to establish the contact and pass the necessary reports. The short window means that the satellite was at a very low altitude for both stations and of course Doppler shift is always a problem. They used a feature in the SatPC32 tracking software to determine where exactly in the passband they would be heard and it worked exactly as predicted. FO-29 is a mode J transponder with the uplink on 2metres and the downlink on 70 cms. This was quite an achievement given the very narrow time window so well done to Joe and Hector.
Cork Radio Club members will be QRV for 24 hours on Saturday, 20 April as Ei5IMD from Brow Head near Crookhaven in West Cork for this year's International Marconi Day activation. Two stations are planned, one CW and the other SSB, and maybe a third operating PSK31. Bands to be covered will include 80 through 10 meters including WARC bands, and operations will be from the AREN command trailer. Ei5IMD is an award station acknowledged by the IMD sponsors as operating from the actual site of a former Marconi station. Information about Brow Head and its Marconi history can be found on the Ei5IMD page on QRZ.com. Parking is tight on top but all are welcome to visit operations on the day.
The North Cork Radio Group would like to thank Dave EI6AL and the IRTS for offering us the use of the EI13CLAN callsign over the period 28th March - 7th April. Our members had great fun with the call and it was highly in demand with our DX counterparts. We operated both voice and data modes on all bands and made some great contacts. We will miss the pile ups created by it.
NCRG also wish to thank those of you who contacted us at our recent activation at Ballynamona Beach on the 18th March, we had great fun and many an antenna was assembled and tested. We will be active from Mizen Head Visitors Centre for Marconi Weekend being 20th - 21st April using the callsign EI0IMD. We are one of the listed stations for the Marconi Award for those of you wishing to collect it.
Finally, the Group will also be operating a new callsign EI75GP for the upcoming event of the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Cork Grand Prix which is to be held on 22nd - 23rd June 2013. We will also be active for another new initiative involving Fort Camden and the "Rescue Camden" effort, which aims to help in the restoration and development of Fort Camden, Crosshaven, with our members active through the months of June - September 2013, as well as taking part in the ILLW (Lighthouse & Lightship) weekend in August using the reference IE0010 from Roches Point. More details in relation to these activations will be available nearer the dates
The Cork Repeater Group AGM will be held at the SMA Community Hall Wilton on Tuesday night April 16th, 8pm. Everyone are welcome.
The Radio Society of Great Britain Centenary AGM will be held at 12.00 noon on 20th April, IET, Savoy Place, London.
Two Japanese operators, Shoji JA7HMZ and Kei JA7GYP, will be QRV from Micronesia from 15-20 April . They will be on Pohnpei Island and use the callsigns V63DX and V63T. Activity will be on all bands 40 – 10m. QSLs go via the home calls.
Hans DL6JGN and Guenter DL2AWG will activate Nukunonu Atoll in the Tokelau Islands from 15-30 April. They will use the call ZK3N and be active on CW, SSB and RTTY. This one counts as OC-048 for the Islands on the Air Award.
DXers will remember contacting Bodo 5N0OCH during 2009 when he was working in Nigeria and again as 5N7Q in 2011. His home call at the time was DL3OCH but he has since received the German call of DF8DX. He plans to be active as 5H1DX from Tanzania later this month. During his time there he will operate from Pemba Island AF-063 and Zanzibar Island AF-032. Main activity will be on CW on the IOTA frequencies.
Prefix hunters will be interested to work XR86PL. This station is QRV from Chile until 30 April. It marks the 86th Anniversary of the Chilean Police. QSL Manager is CE3ETE.
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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