At the recent IRTS committee meeting, two new office holders were welcomed on board. Liam Mangan EI4GB will take over the job as EMC manager previously held by Brendan Minish EI6IZ. Aaron O’Reilly EI6HTB takes over the role as Youth Officer, a role previously held by Brian EI8IU. We wish Liam and Aaron well in their new roles. Our sincere thanks to both Brendan and Brian for their service to the society over the years.
Eddie Kavanagh EI3FFB recently retired from about ten years as a newsreader both on VHF and in latter years on the 80m news on Sundays. The committee passed a vote of appreciation to Eddie for providing such an excellent and valuable service to his fellow amateurs. We welcome two new newsreaders to the 80m service. Declan EI9FVB and Stefan EI4KU will share the role going forward. Thanks to both for volunteering. Further volunteers are needed to share the load on both 40 and 80 metres. If you are interested in becoming part of a rota, please send an email to horandx at gmail dot com
As part of the Atlantic Air Adventure summer camp for school students, LCARC provided a working HF station. While the focus was on HF communications, SDR, and construction, the eight club members present treated the students to some aspects of physics, electrical generation and meteorological measurements. Several groups of students of various ages and from various locations attended. Covid-19 guidelines were fully observed in that each group was divided into smaller groups as they progressed through the presentations. With the IRTS announcement of the dates for the next HAREC Exam, LCARC club members are available to help anyone preparing for the exam. Club members are also available to run the HAREC course - anyone interested should contact LCARC Chairman, Dermot Gleeson (via e mail) ei2gt at eircom dot net.
A reminder that you still have time to apply to sit the HAREC examination being held in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Little Island, Cork on Saturday August 8th. The closing date for this is Wednesday next July 29th. Places for exams are only reserved on receipt of an application form and exam fee. Log on to www.irts.ie/exam for further details. A further exam will be held in Galway on August 15th.
The results of the IRTS VHF/UHF 2020 contests have been published, see www.irts.ie/results for full details This was a one-off series of short contests on five VHF and UHF bands, replacing the cancelled VHF/UHF Field Day. 16 operators submitted a total of 41 logs covering the 5 separate bands. Conditions were fairly flat over the weekend, with just occasional openings.
The next scheduled IRTS contest is SSB Field Day, due to be held over the first weekend of September. This is primarily a club/group event, so it will not take place if social distancing guidelines remain in their current form. A decision on whether to proceed with SSB Field Day will be taken within the next few weeks.
EI News is published monthly as a PDF and sent to all IRTS members who have supplied an email address to membership records. It is circulated on the first day of each month and Editor Steve Wright EI5DD is always on the lookout for items of interest. Material for inclusion can be submitted via email to newsteam at IRTS dot ie. If you are not on the circulation list and want to be included, send your email address to memrecords at irts dot ie.
The popular Mid Ulster ARC Tuesday Night Lecture series continues again on Tuesday the 28th at 1900 with the speaker being Dave Wilson M0OBW, the RSGB President, on the topic of ‘Life as a President and How Online Exams are working’ Everyone is very welcome to join via zoom and for the zoom details please contact Dave 2i0SJV on email address dcparkinson at icloud dot com
Two new satellites, EASAT-2 and Hades are being built by the Spanish National Society satellite group AMSAT-EA together with the European University of Madrid. Their main function is to act as analogue and digital repeaters for radio amateurs. An SSTV camera provided by the Czech Republic will also be carried. The two satellites are expected to be launched by SpaceX in December. Hades will uplink on 145.925 MHz and downlink on 436.888 MHz EASAT-2 will uplink on 145.875 MHz and downlink on 436.666 MHz
The window for the Perseid meteor shower is from July 16 to August 23rd. As one of the bigger showers of the year, meteor scatter operators stand a chance of making QSOs at any point in this window, however the peak occurs on August 11th and 12th. The shower appears to originate from within the star constellation Perseus – hence the shower's name. It occurs when Earth passes through the debris stream occupying the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle.
An interesting meteor scatter contest is run during the Perseids by MMMonVHF in cooperation with the magazine Dubus and Funk-Telegramm and it runs from 1500z on August 11th to 1459z on August 13th. You can get full details on mmmonvhf.de/ctestinfo.php
A balloon launched on May 11th is now on its 4th lap of the earth. It transmits a position report every 10 minutes during daylight hours on the 20m band using just 10 milliwatts on a special version of the WSPR mode using 1.4 baud with a bandwidth of just 6 Hertz. It is solar powered only and carries no batteries. The callsign is W5KUB-18 and it can be tracked on APRS.fi or you can log in to the website W5KUB.com and select balloon from the menu for full details of the project and tracking options. This is the groups ninth attempt to circumnavigate the earth with a balloon.
Items for inclusion in next week’s radio news can be submitted by email to newsteam/at/irts/dot/ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The deadline is midnight on Thursday Urgent items for the radio news may be telephoned to 087-6290574.
[N]