Irish Radio Transmitters Society
Radio News Bulletin

Sunday July 8th 2007
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Silent Key Seán Cooney EI5GH

The many friends of Seán Cooney EI5GH will be saddened
to hear of his death on Friday after a period of
illness. Seán was very well known in amateur radio
circles and up to this year had the distinction of
never having missed an AGM for more years than any of
us would care to remember. All of those who went to
Baggot Street in the early mid 1960's will have had
along association with Seán. After Baggot Street Seán
was a founder member of the City of Dublin Radio Club
with Dermot EI9BT and John EI8DE both now also sadly
deceased. He served as Treasurer of the Society for
quite a number of years and up to the time of his
illness he had been one of the readers of the two metre
FM news bulletins in the Dublin area. His distinct
voice and humour will be sadly missed on the two-metre
news and on the NDR net on Monday nights.

We extend our deepest sympathy to his family. May he
rest in peace.
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Theory Examination

Last Thursday week forty-five candidates sat the theory
examination for the experimenters licence at centres in
Dublin and Carrigtwohill. The examination papers have
been checked and the results were delivered to ComReg
on Tuesday last. ComReg have been very efficient in
sending out the results but it takes time as each
candidate gets a breakdown of their results in each of
the three sections of the paper. We appeal to
candidates not to contact ComReg about the results, as
results will not be given over the phone or by e-mail.
The official letters will issue in due course. There is
also no point in contacting the IRTS about results. The
papers are checked by IRTS but the issue of results and
the HAREC certificate to successful candidates is a
matter exclusively for ComReg.
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CQIR

Great interest is being expressed worldwide in the
Society's 75th Anniversary Contest CQIR, which will
take place on the last weekend in September. The
contest is a celebration of Ireland and the Irish,
throughout the world and with 40 million people in the
United States alone claiming Irish forefathers; we
expect that CQIR will be one of the largest 'one off'
contests ever aired on the Amateur Bands. It is a
24-hour single operator contest with the emphasis on
participation rather than winning and to this end every
participant gains an entry ticket for a spectacular
draw for every 75 QSO’s made during the Contest.

The ticket drawn out of the EI/GI drum will win an all
expenses paid long weekend in New York City for two
people. ARRL have confirmed that this will include a
visit to their national headquarters hosted by ARRL.
Kinnitty Castle in Offaly will host the international
winners for a week with flights for two from anywhere
in the world. The prizes have been fully sponsored at
no cost to the Society and this is really an excellent
opportunity to celebrate the Society and its 75 years
of service to Irish experimenters. We would encourage
all Irish operators to be active during the Contest. So
ring fence the last weekend of September in your diary,
make an effort to have that new antenna up for the
event and lets ensure a good show from the local Irish
operators to support the international Irish who will
no doubt come on the bands in their thousands for the
contest. Full rules are on the IRTS website.
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Limerick Radio Club

Limerick Radio Club has been invited by the Foynes
Flying-Boat Museum to operate a special Amateur Radio
Station in conjunction with the commemorative
Transatlantic Re-Enactment Flight 1937 from
Newfoundland Canada to Foynes Ireland. A special call
sign has been allocated to the station EI-70-FOY. The
station will be on the air from the 6th to the 8th of
July 2007. On HF the station will operate from 80 to 10
metres. It will also operate on VHF / UHF using the
EI70FOY call sign.

A special QSL card, commemorating the Re-Enactment
Flight, will be sent to all stations worked over the
three-day event. All QSL cards should be sent to the
Club’s QSL Manager Alan Cronin EI8EM at QTHR. Limerick
Radio Club can be contacted at “ei4lrc at eircom dot
net” or at www.qsl.net/ei4lrc.
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South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

The next general meeting will take place on Monday the
30th of July at 8.00 p.m. in the Roanmore Centre,
Waterford. All are welcome.
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Road Racing Championships

On the 1st of July last, the National road racing
championships took place in Waterford city and the
event was hosted by Comeragh Cycling Club. The
13.3-mile course took in some of the busiest junctions
and roundabouts in the city, a huge entry saw over 120
riders entered for the senior race and 30 for the
junior. The senior race took in eight laps and the
juniors five, Local operators (all AREN members) who
had been involved in a similar type race last year were
again asked to get involved in the traffic management
side of things and readily agreed. AREN were then
consulted and a course of action agreed.

First and foremost a site needed to be found for the
AREN repeater that would provide radio coverage over
the entire course and a site was subsequently found and
tests proved satisfactory. Following this a decision
was taken to use signs at all junctions and roundabouts
which meant that mobile operators not familiar with the
course could identify their precise location and also
ensured that net control could pinpoint any segment of
the race at any time as this was vital for traffic
management. Also a very simple radio protocol was
adopted for the day, which ensured that all
communications were kept short, and to the point with
14 operators involved on the day this was vital.

Race day saw all operators meet at race HQ at the W.I.T
campus, firstly five mobiles were fitted with radios
and antennas, mobile operators were Richie - EI9HR,
John - EI7IG, EI7JS, Robbie - EI8FZB and Nicky - EI3JB.
John, EI8JA then departed for the repeater site to set
up the repeater aided by SWL David Gainda. John - EI2GN
departed for the start/finish line to act as net
controller while Conor - EI4JN was deployed as
motorcycle mobile which enabled him to be deployed
quickly anywhere on the course that he was needed. Mick
- EI3IQ, Gareth - EI7FZB, John - EI8FRB, Aidan - EI2CTB
and SWL David went to their positions at various
round-abouts and junctions. The senior race started
promptly at noon followed ten minutes later by the
juniors. Both races were accompanied by service cars
also present on the course were officials of the
cycling federations, Gardai, Ambulance service and
Civil Defence.

Radio communications for the duration of the race was
intense as the senior race was over in just more than
four hours. Richie - EI9HR would like to thank all who
helped out on the day also a big thank you to Neil -
EI3JE for the loan of the equipment.
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Foyle and District Amateur Radio Club

Foyle and District Amateur Radio Club, Bready,
Strabane, Co. Tyrone will be heading to St. Angelo
Airport, Enniskillen for the 2007 Jet World Masters
competition. The competition itself runs from the 5th
to the 14th of July. The club station will be on the
air during the weekend July the 13th and 14th using the
club's callsign MN0AKU/P.

This event is the ultimate radio-controlled model
aircraft competition. These model planes are capable of
speeds up to 250 miles per hour. One hundred pilots
from 31 countries will be taking part in this
competition. More information can be found on their
website www.jwm2007.com

The club wishes to express its gratitude to all the
operators who contacted them during the 2 days of their
Amelia Earhart special event station on May the 20th
and 21st. A sepia-tone photo of the aviator has been
used for a unique QSL card and these will soon be sent
out via the buro. Foyle and District Amateur Radio
Clubs web address is www.mn0aku.org.uk.
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Rally’s

The Cork Radio Club Rally will take place on Sunday the
23rd of September in the Blarney Park Hotel, Blarney,
Co. Cork, the Waterford Rally will take place on the
21st of October 2007 in the Woodlands Hotel, Waterford
and the Mayo Radio Rally will be on Sunday the 18th of
November in the Belmont Hotel, Knock, Co. Mayo.

A full listing of upcoming rally’s is available on
www.irts.ie.
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Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be
forwarded to Mark Wall, EI7IS at QTHR or by phone to
051-853806 or 087-6302026. Items for the radio news can
also be faxed to 087 5 6302026. News should be
submitted via e-mail to “news at irts dot ie” for
automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news
services. Please note that items for the radio news
should reach the editor no later than midday on Friday
in order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following
Sunday’s bulletin.