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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday May 23rd 2021.
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EI9IZ Silent Key

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Hazel Leahy
EI9IZ of Barnlough, Bansha, Co Tipperary who passed away on Thursday
the 13th of May 2021. While not very active in recent years, Hazel was
one of the founding members of Tipperary Amateur Radio Group when it
was formed in October 1994. She served as secretary of T.A.R.G. on its
formation and played a major role in getting the group active over the
following years. Hazel was a well respected and a valued member of
T.A.R.G. as her enthusiasm for ham radio was infectious. We offer our
deepest sympathies to her loving husband Joe EI5GE and extended family.
May she rest in peace.
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IRTS Committee 2021/22

The first meeting of the newly elected IRTS committee was held on-line
on Saturday May 15th. The main business of this first meeting is to
allocate the almost 40 jobs that keep the Society running smoothly. The
committee is grateful to all the volunteers who keep the show on the
road, many of whom have been doing it for a great number of years. The
only changes in the line-up are that Harry O'Loughlin EI2KL was
confirmed as Honorary Secretary and Dermot Gleeson EI2GT was appointed
as Chairman of the Examination Board to replace Gerry Gervin EI8CC who
resigned the position he held on an interim basis. Michael Kingston
EI2IX was added to the exam board. The other board members are John
Ronan EI7IG and David Malone EI7GYB. Volunteers are required to form
part of a newsreaders team with Owen EI4GGB for the Sunday 40 metre
broadcasts at 1100 and Echo Ireland Echo Editor Veronica Holohan is
still looking for a DX correspondent.
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IRTS Annual General Meeting 2022

The 89th Irish Radio Transmitters Society's AGM weekend will take place
over the weekend of the 9th & 10th April 2022 in the Woodford Dolmen
Hotel, Kilkenny Road, Carlow. The event is being hosted by The South
Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC. The 2020 weekend was due to take
place in the same location, again hosted by the EI2WRC club but had to
be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More details about the 2022
event will be made known once confirmed. The event organising committee
hope to make the 2022 event a greater success than the 2015 event held
in Kilkenny and look forward to welcoming radio enthusiasts from
Ireland and beyond to Carlow for the event. For anyone who 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 their meetings. You
can check their website www.searg.ie and you can also join them on
Facebook and follow them on Twitter.
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CW Field Day

IRTS CW Field Day takes place over the weekend of 5th and 6th of June.
This contest is for portable stations and is on the CW contest
preferred segments of the contest bands from Top Band to 10 metres. It
runs for 24 hours from 1500 UTC on Saturday 5th June; there are 24 hour
sections and a restricted 6 hour section. The first weekend in June is
when a number of IARU Region 1 societies would normally run CW Field
Day contests and has always been a good opportunity for European CW
operators test their skills in a portable environment. The covid
pandemic has affected field day and other contests over the past year
and no IRTS field day events were held in 2020. Following improvements
in the public health situation in recent months, we decided to proceed
with our field day events this year, subject to restrictions and
precautions that have been inserted into the contest rules. We note
that DARC, the German national society, has decided to cancel its CW
Field Day this year; while it acknowledges the improved health
situation, it is concerned that regulations or restrictions may not be
uniform throughout the country. The RSGB CW Field Day contest is going
ahead, so we can expect plenty of activity from UK portable stations.
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IRTS Publications

IRTS publish a quarterly printed magazine, Echo Ireland and a monthly
on-line bulletin EI News as well as a weekly radio news bulletin. The
deadline for submission of material for the summer edition of Echo
Ireland is next Tuesday week June the 1st. If you have a technical
article, activity report, club report or anything of interest to our
members, Editor Veronica Holohan would love to hear from you. EI News
is distributed to all members who have filed an email address with our
membership records section on the first day every month, This is edited
by Steve Wright EI5DD and he is always seeking information of upcoming
events for publication. The deadline for the June edition is Friday
next May 28th. Items for publication in Echo Ireland, EI News and the
weekly radio news can be sent to newsteam at irts.ie
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New 40 MHz propagation beacon now operational from the West of Ireland

A new 8-metre propagation beacon with the callsign EI1CAH is now
operational from the west of Ireland and it transmits on a frequency of
40.016MHz. The new beacon will transmit in both CW and PI4 modes with a
output power of 25-watts into a horizontal dipole. This new 40 MHz
beacon is designed to explore the possibility of VHF paths across the
Atlantic as it is situated roughly halfway between the 10m and 6m
bands. It is hoped that the beacon will prove to be a very useful
propagation indicator for any serious 50 MHz stations in North America
looking for any impending openings to Europe. It is expected that the
beacon has the potential be heard in North America, the Caribbean and
South America during the Sporadic-E season going from May to July every
year and also around the time of the peak of the upcoming sunspot cycle
when the MUF goes well above 30 MHz.
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HAREC Training Nearing an End

The National Shortwave Listener club has been running classes on line
for the Amateur Station Licensing Examination since early November. The
first two classes Alpha and Bravo completed their course on March 11th
and have been attending revision classes since then on Wednesday
nights. The third group, Class Charlie, started their course on March
30th and running two nights per week, finished their sixteen lesson
course last week and will be joining the other classes for revision on
Wednesday nights until an examination is held. It is anticipated that
over one hundred students will sit the exam. The National Shortwave
Listeners Club meets on Sunday nights on the Zoom platform and all
shortwave listeners are invited to join in. Further training will
resume after the summer break and anyone interested should make contact
via the website. Contact details can be found on www.swl.ie
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On the Air next week

The RSGB 80 metres Club Championships on CW runs from 1900z to 2030z on
Thursday next May 27th.

The CQ WW CW WPX Contest is on next weekend and runs for 48 hours from
midnight utc on Friday night. Congratulations to the following
certificate winners in last year's event for Ireland: EI20C in the All
Band high power section, EI0W in the All Band Assisted high power
section, EI8JX in the all band low power section, EI4CF in 10 metre low
power section and EI2IDB in the 20 metre low power section Lots of DX
stations have announced plans to be active for this one.

An interesting event next weekend is `The Day of YLs' which runs for 48
hours on Saturday and Sunday on 80, 40, 20, 10 and 2 metres. It is an
all mode event including CW, SSB, RTTY, FT8, DMR, Fusion and DSTAR and
of course the object is to encourage YL activity. Everyone is
encouraged to join in the fun.

DX news Look out for 3A/IW1RBI from Monaco between the 27th and 30th of
May. They plan to operate on the 30 to 6m bands using FT8 in Fox and
Hound mode. SSB and CW will also be used. QSL LOTW, Direct or Club Log.

Daniel, 5R8RP has moved to Africa-057, an island of the north-west
coast of Madagascar. His current setup includes a vertical multiband
antenna for 40-6 metres.

Phil, F5TRO and his wife Ann, F5BSB are relocating permanently to
Reunion Island, Africa-016. Their new callsigns are FR8UA and FR8TZ
respectively. They will operate mainly SSB and CW. QSL LOTW or direct.
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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 News Editor Dave EI4BZ on 087-6290574.

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