Irish Radio Transmitters Society
Radio News Bulletin
Sunday 14th December 2014

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Echo Ireland

The latest issue of Echo Ireland includes reports on club activities
and DXing, a summary of the recent IARU Conference in Bulgaria, along
with news of two new IRTS award programmes.

One of the club activities covered in December's Echo Ireland is the
very successful Papa Lima DX Group operation on the Blaskets, which
included participation in the IOTA Contest. The report by Ark EI9KC
includes plenty of photos from this very picturesque area. Club
activity of a different kind is dealt with in an article by Brian
EI8EJB, who describes the demonstration station established by Dundalk
Amateur Radio Society at the County Louth Agricultural Show in June.
There is also an extensive report on the diverse range of activities
undertaken by Limerick Radio Club over recent months, as well as
updates from South Dublin Radio Club, Tipperary Amateur Radio Group,
Galway VHF Group, Mayo Radio Experimenters, Avondhu and Shannon Basin
radio clubs.

DX news is covered in the regular "HF Happenings" column by Anthony
EI2KC, who talks about 'frequency police' as well as recent and
forthcoming DXpeditions. Also on the DX front, Dave EI9FBB tells us
about his involvement in the activation of Pelikan Key, a Caribbean
island in one of the recently added IOTA island groups.

All this and lots more is covered in the December issue of Echo
Ireland, which is currently being mailed to members.
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Two Metre Revival

Fingal Radio Club, EI2FRC, and Dermot, EI2HD, are trying to get some
life back into 2 metre transmissions. With this in mind they intend to,
as and from Wednesday 7th January, on a weekly basis, start a call-in
on 2 metres. The starting time will be 7.30 p.m. and finishing
whenever. The frequency will be 145.525 to start with and it is hoped
that other clubs might take up the mantle on other nights, and perhaps
over time, have a good amount of amateurs old and young gracing the air
on 2 metres again. The promoters of this proposal point out that, up to
some years ago life on 2 metres was extremely busy night after night,
so they are now aiming to bring back some activity to the band and
perhaps even get some of the old timers back on air!
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New IRTS Awards

We mentioned earlier that the December issue of Echo Ireland includes
news of two new IRTS award programmes. One of these is the Worked all
Ireland Counties Awards for 2015, designed to encourage WAI activity
during 2015, with awards based on working or hearing a combination of
WAI squares and counties. Echo Ireland has all the detailed rules,
which are also available at www.irts.ie/wai15 on the IRTS web site.

The other award programme is for 70 MHz activity, and celebrates the
likely adoption of the band 69.9 to 70.5 MHz as a secondary amateur
allocation in the European Common Allocation Frequency Table, and
Ireland's significant involvement in the process. There are two classes
of awards - one based on Maidenhead locators worked and another based
on continents, countries and islands worked. Again, Echo Ireland has
more information, and the web site at www.irts.ie/70MHz has all the
details.
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Radio Rallies in 2015

The first 2015 rally is the annual Phoenix Amateur Radio Club rally,
which takes places as usual in the Coolmine Community School, near
Blanchardstown Shopping Centre, on Sunday 15th February.

Limerick Radio Club's Annual Radio, Hobbies and Electronics Rally takes
place on 8th March and, of course, the last weekend in April - 25th and
26th April - sees the IRTS AGM Weekend and Rally, hosted by the South
Eastern Amateur Radio Group. Tickets for the annual dinner which will
be held on the Saturday evening at 7:00 pm are now available from John
Ronan EI7IG.

See www.irts.ie/rallies for full details of all these events.
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IRTS 80 Metres Counties Contest

IRTS 80 metres Counties Contest takes place on New Year's Day, Thursday
1st January 2015, from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC. Modes are SSB only or SSB
and CW, there are fixed and portable sections and a section for
listeners. See the web site at www.irts.ie/contests for the contest
rules, and note in particular the rule about permitted frequencies for
this contest.
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Youngsters On The Air

EI0YOTA has been on the air since the start of December to celebrate
Youngsters On The Air Month. As previously reported, the YOTA programme
is being specially promoted this month. Mentor operators from EI are
encouraged to use the EI0YOTA call sign, with a young person to
operate. Anyone wishing to use the call is asked to contact Ger EI4GXB
or Jordan EI4HLB QTHR.
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South Dublin Radio Club

South Dublin Radio Club meetings resume on Tuesday 6th January. The
club meets at 8.00 pm on Tuesdays at the Ballyroan Community Centre,
Marian Road, Rathfarnham, visitors and new members are always welcome.
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DX News

Bruce 3W3B will be in Laos operating as XW4XR from 15 December until 2
January. He operates CW and RTTY and his QSL manager is E21EIC.

Nobuaki JA0JHQ will sign JA0JHQ/VK9N from Norfolk Island on 20 - 22
December. He expects to be mainly active on 17 and 15m SSB. QSLs go via
the home call.

Lee DS4NMJ is coming near the end of his year-long stay at the Korean
'Jang Bogo' research station at Terra Nova Bay in Antarctica. He uses
the callsign D8A and will be there until the end of January. His QSL
manager is HL2FDW.

Gerard F2VX and Bernard F9IE will be in Martinique until 8 January.
While there they will sign FM/homecall. Activity will be on SSB and CW.
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Items for inclusion in next week's Radio News can be submitted via
e-mail to "newsteam /at/ irts / dot / ie" for automatic forwarding to
both the radio and printed news services. Urgent news items for the
radio news may be telephoned to the radio news editor, Aidan, EI7JC on
085 7100511.

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.