Archived News Script

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 1st November 2020


HAREC Examination Students Meeting on Zoom

Anybody interested in furthering their interest in amateur radio and working towards sitting the HAREC examination is invited to log into a meeting on the Zoom platform on Wednesday next November 4th at 2000. A link to the meeting will be posted on the IRTS Facebook page and is on the IRTS website at www.irts.ie/training and can also be had by emailing training /at/ irts.ie or by ringing 087-6290574. This is an attempt to see if online training based on the HAREC examination syllabus is a viable proposition and to establish if there is a demand for the service. Please pass on the word to any interested shortwave listeners you may have contact with.


IRTS Contest Results

The final IRTS Counties Contest of the year was the 40 metres contest on Sunday 11th October, and the results of this contest have now been published. Propagation was disappointing on the day, with little or no short skip on the band. Although 20 EI/GI counties appear in the logs, most local stations only managed to work their own county and some adjoining counties. Overseas stations had better luck: the leading overseas station in the SSB only section, Paul M0XDX, worked 17 Irish counties during this one-hour event. See www.irts.ie/results for full details. The next IRTS contest is the traditional New Year's Day 80 metres Counties Contest, at 17:00 UTC on Friday 1st January 2021.


South Dublin Radio Club continues its Tuesday Night Lecture Series via Zoom.

Next Tuesday 3rd November, at 2000, South Dublin Radio Club welcomes Joe Ryan EI7GY who will give a presentation titled "Radio Experiments by Colonel Dennis EI2B". This presentation will cover experiments in radio communications from 1898 to the late 1930s by Colonel Dennis EI2B, who is widely regarded as the world's first radio amateur. All are welcome to join. Please direct message South Dublin Radio Club via their website, Twitter & Facebook Accounts for login details. They are currently lining up presentations & talks for further Tuesday nights over the next few weeks, please stay tuned to their social media channels & 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.


The International Beacon Project

The International Beacon Project (IBP) is a worldwide network of radio propagation beacons. It consists of 18 CW beacons operating on five designated frequencies in the higher frequency bands. The IBP beacons provide a means of assessing the prevailing ionospheric signal propagation characteristics to both amateur and commercial high frequency radio users. The project is coordinated by the Northern California DX Foundation (NCDXF) and the International Amateur Radio Union. The first beacon of the IBP started operations from Northern California in 1979. The network was expanded to include 8 and subsequently 18 international transmission sites. The beacons transmit on 5 frequencies: 14.100, 18.110, 21.150, 24.930, 28.200 MHz in a 3-minute cycle so that no two beacons transmit at the same time on the same frequency. Each transmission is 10 second long, and consists of the call sign of the beacon transmitted at 22 words per minute followed by four dashes. The call sign and the first dash is transmitted at 100 watts of power. The subsequent three dashes are transmitted at 10 watts, 1 watt and 0.1 watt respectively All information on the beacon network is available on ncdxf.org/beacon.


Galway Lecture on NVIS

The Galway Radio Experimenters Club will be hosting a lecture on NVIS communication on Wednesday next November the 4th at 2000. This will be presented by Steve Wright EI5DD and hosted on the JITSI Platform. For login details contact Steve EI5DD at wright14 /at/ gmail.com. The Galway Club’s Annual General Meeting will be held on November 15th at 8pm. This was originally planned for the Menlo Park Hotel but due to COVID-19 Restrictions, it will probably be held via JITSI. Contact the Club for more details at secretary /at/ galwayradio.com

The 2nd Annual Galway Club Journal will be published on November the 15th and will be available on the Club’s website galwayradio.com and also on the EI7GL page at ei7gl.blogspot.com. The fifty-two page publication, edited by Steve Wright EI5DD, will also be distributed to all club secretaries for forwarding to their members. They would appreciate receiving other club’s journals.


Nominations Open for Golden Antenna Award

For 50 years, the town of Bad Bentheim, a German town in Lower Saxony has hosted German-Dutch Amateur Radio Days, during which the town stresses the importance of amateur radio as a public service. They present the Golden Antenna award which recognizes an individual radio amateur or a group for outstanding humanitarian performance. Nominations are open until April 1, 2021 and this year they will favour candidates who did something special related to the COVID-19 pandemic but other candidates are also welcome. A committee headed by the mayor of Bad Bentheim will choose the winner. The recipient will be invited to Bad Bentheim to receive the award, which will be presented on August 28, 2021.


On the Air next week

Next Wednesday the 4th is the first Wednesday of the month and that means the UKEI Contest Club will hold their 80 metre SSB contest for one hour starting at 2000. The exchange is your six-character grid square and a signal report is not required. You must submit your log within an hour of the contest ending and the results will be published within another hour, Have a look at ukeicc.com for all the details. The leading EI in the October contest was Aidan EI8CE whose 95 QSOs saw him finish in third place overall and in first place in the high power unassisted section. Other leading EI stations were Declan EI9FVB in sixth place and Andrew EI8KF in fourteenth place. The Ukrainian DX Contest in both SSB and CW, will run for twenty-four hours, starting at 1200 on Saturday next. The exchange is report and serial number. Stations from the Ukraine will send their two letter oblast number. And finally, a reminder of some EI nets on during the week. South Dublin Radio Club have a daily 2m net on 144.330MHz SSB from 2000 to 2100. On Mondays at 2000, the Shannon Basin Club hold their top band net on 1.847MHz plus or minus QRM, On Tuesdays, the Cork VHF/UHF net is held on a different band each week. See ei7gl.blogspot.com for details. On Wednesdays, the Shannon Basin Club 80 metre net is on 3.720MHz plus or minus QRM and also on Wednesdays, the Mayo VHF Group Lockdown net is on 145.375MHz at 2000. The Shannon Basin 2 metre net is on the club’s repeater EI2CAR on 145.775MHz with an 88.5 tone on Thursdays at 20:00, On Sunday mornings, the South Dublin Radio Club hold their 40m net on 7.123MHz from 0830 until IRTS news time with Joe EI6EG at 1100.. The Irish hour is on daily on 14.156MHz at 1700 with a special emphasis on the Sunday net.


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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