The February meeting of The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will be held on Monday, the 7th of February, at 8:00 p.m. sharp at The Sweep Bar, Adamstown, Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford, Eircode X91 H588. This will be the first physical meeting of the club since February 2020, so we are looking forward to seeing many familiar faces and also some new club members who we have never met in person. Any non-members who are interested in finding out more about the hobby or the group are also very welcome on the night. There will be a lot to discuss on the night including plans for the year ahead with some exciting new activations in the pipeline, so we look forward to seeing a big crowd in attendance.
The 89th Irish Radio Transmitters AGM weekend will take place over the weekend of the 9th and 10th of April 2022 in the Woodford Dolmen Hotel, Kilkenny Road, Carlow. Hotel rooms are almost all gone so if you want a hotel room, please book it immediately. Tickets for the Gala Dinner can now be pre-booked from John EI7IG for collection on arrival at the event.
Any IRTS affiliated radio club or group are very welcome to attend the SEARG Radio Rally on the 10th of April and promote their club or group. Tables will be available free of charge, providing they do not sell any radio gear or radio related items. For any club or group to secure a place at the rally please contact the organizing committee by email to irtsagm2022cw /at/ gmail.com as soon as possible but no later than by Friday the 11th of March 2022 in order to be guaranteed a place. Tables will be allocated on a first come first serve basis so book your table early
For anyone that wishes to find out more about the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group and their activities you can drop them an email to southeasternarg /at/ gmail.com or please feel free to go along to any of their meetings. You can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter.
Since 1988, Sweden's national society SSA runs a twice yearly AM contest on 80 meters, organized by the Arboga Radioklubb, inviting anyone who can transmit with Amplitude Modulation to take part. A translation of the SSA post reads: Saturday, February 5th, is the time for the winter AM contest between 09:00 and 11:00 Swedish time, that is 08:00 to 10:00 GMT. Use AM on 3600-3750 kHz. Send your log with signal reports, your name and your QTH to sm5b /at/ ssa.se withing 14 days. Feel free to attach some background information and picture of your AM station. Enjoy a quiet contest with a beautiful modulation, and hear stations with portable equipment from the 40's, homebrew and modern tranceivers with dusty AM buttons. The simple rules or this laid back contest can be found at www.sm5b.se
During December of last year, and again throughout January, a pirate station transmitted on 80 and 40 meters, using USB. The strong signal was heard across Europe. The pirate broadcasted italian and english language messages against Covid-19 measures, but the audio was frequently distorted by overmodulation. The German DARC DF-team found an approximate location in Italy, and informed the Bundesnetzagentur who in turn contacted their Italian counterparts. The broadcasts have stopped since.
The Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) Foundation is funding Amateur Radio related projects through individual grants. The latest recipient is the Internet Archive. They have been awarded nearly $900,000, which will be used to build the 'Digital Library of Amateur Radio and Communications'. The Internet Archive is a nonprofit library of a large collection of free books, movies, software, music, and websites. The Internet Archive said in its proposal that the "the DLARC will be both an education program building a unique and unparalleled collection of primary and secondary resources, but also an innovative technical project that will build a digital library that combines both digitized print materials and [original] digital content,”
The ARDC grant program stems from the proceeds of the July 2019 sale of some 4 million unused consecutive AMPRNet internet addresses. Using those funds, ARDC established a program of grants and scholarships in support of communications and networking research, with a strong emphasis on amateur radio. More infomation can be found in the ARDC pages of www.ampr.org
Axel, DL6KVA, is on air as PZ5KV from Suriname until the 10th of this month on all HF bands, using CW only. Activity will be on various HF bands using CW. QSL via OQRS, direct and bureau.
Two stations are about to go on air in the Maldives. Henry, LU4DXU is using the call sign 8Q7AH from Dharavandhoo Island, IOTA AS-013 between February 8-15th on HF with QRO and monoband dipoles. QSL via his home callsign direct.
And Karel, OK2WM and Vlad, OK2WX will be active as 8Q7WM and 8Q7WX from Innahura Island, also IOTA AS-013 between the 12th of February 12th and the 8th of March. They use only 160, 80 and 40 meters, CW and SSB. QSL via their home callsigns.
This Sunday, Listeners of this Bulletin can hear a very active 4L2M from Georgia in the CQ WW 160 Meter CW contest. Also, the Balkan HF Contest and The Canadian Winter Field Day are under way. You may not be interested in contesting, but you may be able to work stations that are otherwise hard to catch.
Nobby, G0VJG, is preparing to activate Rockall, IOTA EU-189, for one week in June, we'll report in more detail closer to date.
Contesters from EI have made their mark on the recent Hungarian DX Contest, Megan EI5LA, Martin Ei8GP, Ryan Ei8KW and Peter EI7CC entered with good scores, we await the official results. Congratulations to Megan and Ryan for a very impressive results in the YOTA section.
Felix Paez, EA4GQS, AMSAT-EA Mission Manager reports that both their newly deployed satellites are working, except that the antennas have not yet properly extended. However, the AMSAT-EA team confirms that, based on the reception of FSK, CW, the FM voice beacon and the telemetry data that has been decoded, it can be said that the satellite is working perfectly, otherwise one would only hear telemetry. HADES, like EASAT-2, is transmitting weak signals, weaker than the ones of EASAT-2, most likely because the on-board computer has not yet managed to deploy the antennas either, although it will continue trying regularly. The reason the signals are suspected to be weaker at Hades is that the antennas are more tightly folded than those of EASAT-2. The report concludes with an appeal: “We kindly ask you, if you have very high gain antennas, to try to receive them, specially Hades. If we could decode telemetry it would be very helpful for us. Until antennas are deployed it will be very difficult to use their repeaters or to receive any SSTV camera images from Hades, but we hope that this will happen sooner or later, at least because even if the computer doesn’t succeed applying heat to the resistor where the thread is attached, with time, the thread should break due to the space environment conditions. Details of the status and orbital elements can be found on www.amsat-ea.org
Although the Solar flux dropped to arund 100 units again since last weekend's geomagnetic disturbances and brief blackouts from the grazing by an M-flare originating in the still active region 2929. The Sun is remains very active with a solar wind at around 400km/s and an elevated particle count of around eight protons per cubic centimeter. The flux values will increase again from Monday onwards, and as the geomagnetic field has for now settled again one can expect good DX on all HF bands. Like last week, the daytime MUF2 for long hops will rise into the 10 meter band, as confirmed by the very useful website muf.hb9vqq.ch. The maps are updated every 15 minutes. Expect unsettled conditions again for next weekend, as several very active regions are rotating into view.
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.ie for automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The deadline is midnight on Friday.
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