Archived News Script

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 25th October 2020


Mayo VHF Group Covid Lockdown Net

A Covid Lockdown Net will commence on Wednesday next, October 28th in the Mayo area. It will be held weekly on Wednesday evenings at 2000 on 145.375MHz. Everyone is welcome to call in, give a radio report, have a chat and say Hi!


Monthly IRTS EI News

EI News is a monthly publication by the Irish Radio Transmitters Society for its members and is emailed to all members who have an email address on file with the membership records officer. It is edited by Steve Wright EI5DD and is published on the first day of each month. EI News aims to carry news of upcoming events and members, especially clubs, are encouraged to submit details of any planned activities by email to newsteam /at/ irts.ie. An archive of past issues dating back to the original issue in May 2013 has recently been added to the IRTS website at irts.ie.


South Dublin Radio Club Tuesday Presentation on EIRSAT-1.

South Dublin Radio Club continues its weekly club meetings on Tuesday nights from 2000 to 2200 via Zoom. Next Tuesday the 27th of October, at 2100, the South Dublin Club welcomes Fergal and David of EIRSAT-1, Ireland's first satellite! Please note the later start time this week. Fergal and David will give details of the EIRSAT-1 mission and how the ground station at University College Dublin will communicate with the spacecraft. They will also explain how you can listen in to transmissions and how you can help the team to operate EIRSAT-1. All are welcome to join. Please direct message South Dublin Radio Club via their website, Twitter or Facebook accounts for login details. They are currently lining up presentations and talks for further Tuesday nights over the next few weeks, please stay tuned to their social media channels and IRTS News for details. South Dublin Radio Club host a daily 2m net on 144.330MHz SSB from 2000 to 2100 local time and a weekly net on Sunday mornings on 40m on 7.123MHz SSB from 0830, until the IRTS weekly news at 1100 read by Joe EI6EG.


Mid Ulster ARC Tuesday Night Lecture

The Mid Ulster Amateur Radio Club Tuesday Night Lecture Series have now moved to twice monthly on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays after having been running weekly for over 20 weeks. Next Tuesday, the 27th is their last one in October when Bob Henderson 5B4AGN will be speaking on the topic of Band Pass Filters As always, everyone is welcome and for any further questions or information and the Zoom link, email Dave 2i0SJV at dcparkinson /at/ icloud.com


IRTS Committee Meeting on Zoom

The IRTS committee will meet on the Zoom platform on Saturday next October 31st. All Society activities are functioning normally despite the Covid-19 lockdown except for some minor disruption to the QSL bureau’s work due to overseas postal restrictions. Declan Horan, EI9FVB is the co-ordinator for our radio newsreaders and he is actively looking for some new volunteers to join the HF newsreaders panel. If you feel you can help, please email Declan at karg.ei9fvb /at/ gmail.com or give him a call before or after the 80m news at midday any Sunday, Please note that the deadline for receipt of input for the winter edition of Echo Ireland is November 30th.


IARU Conference 2020

The IARU Conference 2020 took place via a virtual platform from the 11th to the 16th of October. It was originally due to take place in Novi Sad in Serbia. The virtual platform allowed a greater representation at the conference by the IRTS as there was no expense involved in travelling and accommodation. The IRTS had six representatives present. Séamus McCague EI8BP as Chair of the Political Relations Committee, Dave Court EI3IO as Chair of the Spectrum and Regulatory Liaison Committee, Jim Holohan EI4HH as Head of Delegation, Joe Fadden EI3IX as VHF/UHF/SHF rep, Liam Mangan EI4GB as EMC rep and Niall Donohoe EI6HIB as Youth Officer. The conference was hosted by Don Beattie G3BJ. While quite an amount of time was taken up with housekeeping issues and preparing the agenda for WRC-23, there were fifty-two recommendations put forward to the final plenary meeting. Some of those recommendations will have certain beneficial outcomes for our hobby.


New Zealand Amateurs Lose 5MHz Band

NZART, the National Society for radio amateurs in New Zealand announced this week that the New Zealand Defence Forces (NZDF) has advised them that they are not willing to approve another renewal of their 5MHz trial licence. As a result, all use by New Zealand amateurs of their 2 trial frequencies, 5353 and 5362kHZ will cease at 2359 on Saturday October the 24th. The 5MHz or 60 metre band was first introduced in 2002 in a few countries but following successful lobbying by the International Amateur Radio Union at the 2015 ITU World Radiocommunication Conference, a worldwide frequency allocation of 5351.5 to 5366.5kHz for the Amateur Service, on a secondary basis, was written into the international radio regulations.


IRTS Contest News

Results of the IRTS 80 metres Counties Contest held on 6th October have now been published.  Band conditions were good for this contest, which kept local and overseas stations busy for the hour. 35 logs were submitted, showing participation from 22 EI and GI counties, as well as 12 overseas DXCC entities. See www.irts.ie/results for full details. An international contest with Irish counties among the multipliers takes place next weekend: this is the UKEICC DX SSB Contest, which runs for 24 hours from 12:00 UTC on Saturday 31st October. This contest is supported by IRTS, with the IRTS HF Shield awarded to the highest scoring Single Operator EI station in the contest. See ukeicc.com for the full rules and other details.


On the Air next week

Recent solar reports tell us that there is quite a bit of activity on the sun and this was borne out during the past week with some excellent conditions on the higher HF bands. On Wednesday next, the UK EI Contest Club 80 metre CW contest will be held, starting at 2000z and it runs for one hour. Logs must be submitted within one hour and results are posted within the next hour. The top EI stations in the September 80m CW contest was EI7M, operated by Martin G4XUM, who finished in 4th place overall and in 1st place in the high power assisted section. Gerard Scannell EI5KF finished in 5th place overall and was in 3rd place in the high power unassisted section.

On the DX front, Cezar VE3LYC will operate as TX0T from Tatakoto Atoll (Oceania-298), French Polynesia, between October 29th and November 5th, 2020. This is an all time new IOTA and Cezar will focus on the 17, 20, 30, and 40m bands, operating both CW and SSB. Don, K6ZO has been active again as 7Q6M from Malawi and he will be QRV in his spare time until December 5th. QSLs go direct to his home call. Erik LA2US will be active as JX2US from Jan Mayen until the end of March.


That is the news for this week. 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 news may be telephoned to 087-6290574.

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