The RTE Amateur Radio Club has been granted a licence by the Office of the Director of Telecommunications Regulation to operate a 24cms ATV Repeater in Dublin. On Saturday 27th November they commenced test transmissions from the RTE Radio and TV transmitter site at Three Rock Mountain, Co Dublin, QRA locator IO63VF.The site is 1500 ft. ASL. The repeater is currently in beacon mode, with test cards and text and full repeater service will commence shortly. The repeater frequencies as licenced are: output 1293 MHz and input1250 MHz The current EIRP is 10 Watts using a Trough Reflector antenna. Initial tests are encouraging with P5 signals reported as far as Dundalk, Co. Louth, a distance of 60 miles from the repeater site. We welcome signal reports to either our voice mail facility on Dublin 01-2083973 or email EI2RTE@rte.ie or in writing to Michael Wright, Radio Centre, RTE, Dublin 4.
Ron Roden G4GKO, Co-ordinator IARU Region 1 monitoring service asked that the frequency of 14.001MHz be monitored for an unidentified carrier. If you can hear the signal, please take a note of the time heard, signal strength and if possible the bearing. Ron has received reports from national monitoring co-ordinators in several countries including Kenya, New Zealand and Canada. Any reports should be communicated to the IRTS monitoring service co-ordinator, Danny Bonar EI6GS at QTHR.
The IARU now has a Monitoring System website and it may Mayo Dinner & Christmas Party The Mayo Radio Experimenters Network's first annual dinner & Christmas party will be held on Saturday next December 18th in the Clew Bay Hotel in Westport. Tickets costing £20 each are available from Padraic Baynes EI6FWB, telephone 098 27616 or Dermot Adams EI7IX on 098 25479 or on e-mail at ei7ix@eircom.net South Dublin Radio Club Next Tuesday, 14th December, South Dublin Radio Club is holding its Christmas Party in the Yellow House, Rathfarnham, at 8.00pm. As usual, all are welcome. There will be no meeting in the Ballyroan Community Centre on that night, nor will there be a meeting on the following Tuesday, 21st December. The club will re-open for the New Year on Tuesday 4th January.
The club Christmas Quiz was run on December 12th and although the turn out was disappointing a good night was had by all who attended. Some lateral thinking was required for some of the questions and the topics were wide ranging covering anything from amateur radio to tractors, grease nipples to beehive capacitors. The triumphant duo was John EI6IW and John EI5FOB and right on their heels was Paul EI6FE. There was only 1/2 point separating the two.
All who participated would like to thank Liam EI4GB and Pat EI9GY for running the quiz and for putting in all the effort in collating the questions for the night. The members of the Limerick Radio Club would like to congratulate Nelis EI8IY on passing his Morse test. His old callsign was EI5FPB.
Limerick Radio Club has announced that Yaesu U.K. will be attending their rally in the Limerick Inn Hotel on March 26th next year. They will display their full range of amateur radio gear. There are a number of other traders in the pipeline apart from the normal vendors, all of whom will compliment each other. With all this in mind it should Amateur radio access to the internet in the U.K. The chief executive of the Radiocommunications Agency in the U.K., David Hendon, has announced the start of a two month consultation period, which it is hoped will lead to limited amateur radio access to the Internet by the turn of the year. David Hendon, recently spoke of the important role amateur radio had, in the past, played in encouraging young people to take up a career in radio engineering. He spoke of the decline of amateur radio world wide and emphasised the need to make amateur radio an attractive pursuit for young people. Mr Hendon added that linking amateur radio to the Internet would be an important step forward. It is hoped, subject to licensing considerations, that limited access, perhaps via the Repeater Network, would be in operation by Christmas.
The Limerick Radio Club will hold their annual rally on Sunday the 26th of March 2000 in the Limerick Inn Hotel The IRTS AGM will be held in The Four Seasons Hotel on Monaghan over the weekend of April the 8th and 9th next year.
Items for inclusion in the Radio News should be phoned to Dave Moore at 021-883555 in the evenings or to 021 823172 during office hours. You may also e-mail to ei4bz@irts.ie or to ei8ir@eircom.net. Input for the Newsletter should be sent to Kevin EI7IM at QTHR, on the phone at 01-4509514 or by e-mail to ei7im@qsl.net. Input to either the Radio News or Newsletter can be sent by e-mail to news@irts.ie for automatic forwarding to both news services.
[N]