Archived News Script

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 30 April 2023


Tom Clarke EI6EH Silent Key

Ronnie McGrane EI9ED has informed us of the passing of Tom Clark EI6EH from Kells. Tom was very well known for his pioneering achievements on packet radio and satellite communications back in the 80's and 90's. Tom ran a very successful satellite gateway allowing EI packet radio users to connect to networks and bulletin boards around the world. Ronnie mentions that Tom took his first radio with him to the grave.

May Tom Rest in Peace.


IRTS AGM

Today’s news is brought to you live from the Shannon Basin Radio Club rally at the Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe. This is also the location of the IRTS Annual General Meeting, starting in just a couple of hours. A gala dinner took place yesterday, and Society’s prizes have been awarded to IRTS members and affiliated clubs. The winners will be announced in the next week’s news, and on the IRTS.groups.io email reflector. The IRTS would like to thank the SBRC for organising the entire weekend, including the series of very well attended technical talks yesterday.


South Dublin Radio Club

Daniel EI9FHB announces that the South Dublin Radio Club AGM will take place at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the 2nd of May 2023 at Ballyroan community centre on the Marian Road in Rathfarnham. All members are asked to attend.


EI0SWL

The National Short Wave Listeners Club has 107 members, of whom 45 are licensed. The NSWLC have just registered their call sign: EI0SWL. It will help with Club's nets, and the live technology and operating procedures demos shown during Thursday HAREC classes and the Sunday Social meetings. Dave EI0DB was the first station to have a QSO with EI0SWL. It happened during the Nervous Novices CW Net which takes place each Wednesday, at 20:30 local time somewhere between 3550 and 3555 kHz.


Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club

LEARC will hold its annual rally at the Share Discovery Village, 221 Lisnaskea Road, Lisnaskea, County Fermanagh, post code BT92 0JZ, on Sunday, the 7th of May. The doors open at 11.30 a.m., the entry fee is 5 Pound Sterling or 5 Euro. There will be various trade stands for equipment and components, the RSGB Bookstall, an IRTS stall and the WAB stand. Breakfast and lunch is available and the bar will be open. The Share Discovery Village is a disabled friendly location. To book your space please contact Alan at argault91 /at/ gmail.com or by phone at +44-7771 811484


HamCamp at Friedrichshafen

The German DARC is once again hosting its famous HamCamp during the upcoming Friedrichshafen fair in Germany from the 22nd to the 25th of June. There will be 160 beds available for youngsters up to 27 years of age and their attendants. To reserve a place please reach out to the organizers at hamcamp/at/darc.de .


Orbital News

For nearly 27 years the Japanese Fuji-3 Oscar 29 satellite remains the most widely used linear transponder satellite and an ideal starting point for beginners. However, the period of permanent illumination of the solar panels powering OSCAR-29 is over again. For now the transponders will be powered up each morning, and will run until the solar panels receive too little light.

The SpaceX Falcon-9 Transporter-7 Mission on the 15th of April carried several cubesats carrying ham radio into orbit.

INSPIRE-Sat 7 is a 2U-CubeSat built by French universities, aiming to encourage technology experimentation by students. The ham radio payload is supported by Hackerspace Electrolab and AMSAT Francophone. Frequency tables, keplerian elements, and decoding software for the telemetrics can be downloaded from site.amsat-f.org

The University of Boulder, Colorado built a 3-Unit Cubesat with a primary mission of investigating the inner radiation belt and it's effects on the ionosphere.

RoseyCubesat-1 built by Orbital Solutions Monaco and ISISPACE is an educational mission where students can learn how to download telemetry data and images from the satellite. The satellite also carries a VHF/UHF transponder for ham radio.

More information for these old and new satellites can be found on www.amsat.org

Since September 1995 the '432 and Above EME Newsletters' is the reference periodical for EME operators. The latest newsletter can be downloaded from www.nitehawk.com/rasmit/em70cm.html This month's issue has the usual mix of station reports, microwave experimentation, EME contest news, radio astronomy, and of course pictures of large homebrew antennas.


High Altitude Balloon

In their latest headline, the GB2RS News Team reports another launch by 'hi-impact', based on the Wirral Peninsula in North Wales. It will be featured on the team's live-stream platform to be viewed by many schools across the UK and beyond. The team is planning to launch two high-altitude balloons. One will be running with a HABDuino and the other with some help from AmbaSat, using LoRA. The HABDuino side will be running on the standard setup of 434.650 MHz USB, 50 Baud RTTY, 450 Hz Shift, 7N1 data format and with the callsign 'hi-impact'. If you are planning to upload telemetry to SondeHub, you will need Dave Akerman's HABBase software and Fldigi. The launch, from Cilcewydd in Wales, will be between 11 and 11.15 a.m. on Wednesday, the 3rd of May.


The Propagation Horoscope

NASA predicts flux values up to 140 units. The earth's magnetic field remains disturbed with k-values from 3 to 4. The 3000 km hop F2 MUF is 11 MHz at night, 13 MHz at sunrise, 18 MHz two hours later, peaking at 28 MHz at noon, 25 MHz around sunset, dropping two hours later to 18 MHz. 40m will give good short hop propagation, 20m opens early morning long path towards the South Pacific, all upper bands open in easterly directions just before noon. The afternoon favours southern headings, shifting to North America after the sunset. A weak ridge of high pressure will move in to bring a chance of Tropo for next week, and the first manifestations of sporadic-E propagation have been observed. It is worthwhile to monitor 10, 8 and 6 m. On Monday the daily Sporadic-E blog will start again on on www.propquest.co.uk .

That is the news for this week. Items for inclusion in next the 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.

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