Irish Radio Transmitters Society
Radio News Bulletin
Sunday 18th October 2009

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Bereavement

It is with great sadness to extend our deepest
Sympathy to Owen Furniss EI4DI and family on the death
of their Son, Irish Air Corps Captain Derek Furniss
whose funeral was on Saturday 17th October, May he
rest in peace.
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IRTS Presidents visit to Crossakiel

Last Wednesday, IRTS President Paul Martin EI2CA,
attended the meeting of the Crossakiel Amateur Radio
Association.

The meeting was well attended by CARA members, Paul
EI2CA presented the IRTS Mebership Certificate for CARA
to the Associations President Gary Renihan EI3GIB.

CARA meet every Wednesday in the Welcome Wagon in
Crossakiel, all are welcome to attend.
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Train the Trainers

The Society is considering running a "Train the
Trainers" session for theory tutors intending to run
classes and who wish to use the Society's CD Exam
Course Guide. This may also be of interest to those
unable to attend classes and who wish to use the Guide
as a study aid for the Theory Examination.

The two-hour session would most probably take place on
a weekend afternoon and would demonstrate how best to
use the CD Guide and also practical matters relating to
preparing students to sit the Exam. If you are
interested in participating in such a Training Session
please drop an email to Paul EI2CA or Seamus EI8BP or
indeed any of the Committee Members. Their contact
details are on the IRTS website and in the latest issue
of Echo Ireland.
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Affiliated Clubs

Affiliated Clubs are reminded that they are entitled to
send a representative to IRTS Committee meetings. The
next Committee meeting will take place on Saturday 31st
October in the Port Laoise Maldon Hotel at 11am. The
meetings usually finish by 1pm and it is an opportunity
for Clubs to participate in the Committee process.
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IOTA 2009 Provisional Results

The provisional results for the 2009 Islands On The Air
Contest have now been published. These results show
that over 2,000 logs were submitted - a record figure
for this contest. 20 EI and GI stations submitted logs.

The highest EI/GI score was achieved by EJ0GI - South
Dublin Radio Club and the City of Belfast Radio Amateur
Society - who operated from Inis Oirr. Their score was
just under 5 million points, giving them 8th place in
the DXpedition, Multi-Operator, Mixed Mode, 24 Hour,
High Power category.

GI0MPG, operating from Rathlin Island, were placed 9th
in the same category, with 3.1 million points.
Meanwhile, the Dalkey Island Contest Group (EJ1DD) -
operating from Clare Island and in the Low Power
category - were placed 8th in this category, with over
2.2 million points.

Other Irish stations achieving in excess of one
million points were Thos EI2JD, who placed 1st in the
assisted category and 2nd in the major Single Op
category with 2.9 million points and also Pat EI9HX,
with 1.2 million points.

The highest overall score was achieved by the Slovak
Contest Group operating in Sardinia, followed closely
by the Bristol Contest Group operating from Jersey.
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Dxpedition and IOTA Talk by Declan Craig EI6FR

The Mayo Club has organised Declan Craig EI6FR to
give a talk the evening before the Mayo Radio
Rally, Saturday 21st November. He will have an
interesting account about past Expeditions and
IOTAS’s he has taken part in, how to plan future
events and what is involved.

Declan will be talking from experience as he has
soldiered on a few and his experience is invaluable!
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Dayton 2010, Get with the Program

"Amateur Radio Clubs Worldwide, The Lifeline" will be
the theme of the 2010 Dayton Hamvention scheduled for
next May 14th to the 16th at the O’Hara Arena in
Dayton, Ohio.

In order to help celebrate the world of radio clubs,
Hamvention planners are asking for pictures from radio
clubs around the world that it can use on the front and
back cover of the Hamvention 2010 program magazine.

They are also looking for stories of interest from
interesting radio clubs.

More details are available at the Dayton site

www.hamvention.org
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G5RV's 1932 Logbook sells

On October 1st, the 1932 logbook of Louis Varney, G5RV,
was put up for auction on eBay. Within a couple of days
the price reached £77 where it stayed until last
Sunday. After some intense bidding the logbook finally
sold for £227.

The logbook shows that G5RV's final QSO's were on
January 11 2000.Ironically, the final entries
appeared on page 73 of the logbook. Varney was, of
course using a G5RV antenna that he designed for
those final contacts.
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JOTA 2009

Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) is taking place this weekend

On a weekend each October more than 500,000 people
from over 100 countries participate in the largest
annual world-wide Scouting event - a Jamboree on the
Air, or JOTA.

Amateur radio stations are used to allow the young
people to exchange greetings over the air. In addition
many groups will include construction activities,
electronics tuition, radio 'fox-hunting' and
orienteering, or perhaps combine these with a special
camping weekend.

Also AMSAT the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation has
made changes to the operational schedule of Echo, the
AO-51 Satellite to accommodate JOTA activites. JOTA
stations are encouraged to operate through the Sat on
its passes over the weekend.

Priority has been given to JOTA Stations who would
like to work AO-51 and Amateurs are encouraged to work
JOTA stations.
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Radio Sweden to stop issuing QSL cards

With the start of the new transmission period for
shortwave and mediumwave, as well as satellite, on
October 25, Radio Sweden will only be publishing its
broadcast schedule on the Web.

At the same time Radio Sweden is discontinuing
mailing QSL cards to listeners in response to
reception reports.
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Glorioso Island team hit QSL target

The FT5GA team is now QRT and is happy that the goal of
50 Thousand QSOs was reached by a crew of 5 operators
with two and sometimes three stations.

The FT5GA went QRT on October 7th (a day earlier than
expected due to the military flight schedule).

Didier, F5OGL, states, "The logs of the FT5GA operation
will be very soon on LoTW."
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CQ WW CC announce New Rules

Any participants in the upcoming contest are reminded
to check the rules as there have been some changes
made. It is understood that the changes will not affect
every participant however it is recommended that anyone
participating should review the rules.

More information can be found at www.cqww.com
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DXCluster for mobile phones

The GB7MBC DXCluster is now available for those of you
with mobile smartphones. Web pages have been created to
make it simple to use the cluster when mobile.

Although designed for an iPhone, they have been tested
on Blackberry, Android and the Nokia N95. It should
work with most smartphones.

The pages feature filtering and the capability to click
on a DX callsign to get the QRZ information for it.

The cluster is available at

http://www.gb7mbc.net/webcluster/iPhone.php
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Rallies

Sunday 1st November 2009 Foyle and District ARC Rally
Venue: White Horse Hotel, 68 Clooney Road, Derry, BT47
3PA (same hotel as last year)

Sunday 22nd November 2009 Mayo Radio Rally Venue:
Welcome Inn, Castlebar, Co. Mayo

The rally organiser and main contact is Padraic Baynes
EI9JA mobile 087 - 695 7154 or email pbaynes1 at
eircom dot net Special Accommodation Rates are also
available please check the full details on the
www.ei7mre.org website

For more information on Rallies please check the
IRTS website.
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This week in History

1844 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) established as a world
Time Standard.

1910 First air-sea rescue using radio saves the crew of
the airship America. 1922 BBC is formed in Britain.
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Items mentioned in the IRTS Radio news are of a
general, educational or informative nature, there
is no guarantee that stations mentioned can be
heard or worked

Items for inclusion in next weeks Radio News should be
forwarded to Charlie EI8JB, preferably via e-mail to
“charlie dot Carolan at gmail dot com” Or by phone to
087-6265418 News can also be submitted via e-mail to
“newsteam 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 Thursday in
order to be guaranteed inclusion in the following
Sunday’s bulletin.