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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 3rd January 2021
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Happy New Year

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society President Jim Holohan EI4HH, on
behalf of the Committee and Officers of IRTS, extends best wishes to
all for the coming year 2021. The patron of the Society, Mr. Michael D.
Higgins, President of Ireland in a Christmas message to IRTS members
extended his best wishes for the Christmas and wished everyone a New
Year of hope and promise.
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Good News for Christmas for Austrian Amateurs.

Following a three-year campaign by the Austrian National Society,
OVSV., the Austrian telecommunications regulator in an announcement
just before Christmas approved the use of 60 metre and 630 metres bands
by CEPT Class 1 licences in Austria on a secondary basis. 60 metres or
5 MHz is the WRC-15 Amateur Secondary Allocation of 5351.5 to 5366.5
kHz at 15 watts Effective Isotropic Radiated Power. 630 metres is the
MF Secondary Allocation from the previous WRC-12 of 472 to 479 kHz at 1
watt Effective Isotropic Radiated Power
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Elettra - The Miracle Ship Award

The Miracle Ship Award is an international amateur radio award
organized by A.R.I. Fidenza, an Italian Radio Club, affiliated to the
Italian Amateur Radio League, with the sponsorship and the historical
consultancy and supervision of the "Guglielmo Marconi Foundation"
(www.fgm.it) and the Marconi Museum. Originally called the Rovenska,
Marconi changed the ships name to Elletra in 1921 and to celebrate the
one hundredth anniversary of that event, an award scheme with a
different callsign each month, celebrating different technical
achievements by Marconi on board the ship, will run for the year. Full
details on www.arifidenza.it
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Southern Ireland Repeater Group - DMR repeater for Cork City

A new 70cms DMR repeater was installed at Farmer's Cross near Cork city
on Monday December 21st to provide DMR coverage to Cork City and
surrounding areas. The set up consists of a Motorola DR-3000 repeater
and the antenna is a CAT-C440 at approximately 50ft. This is the fourth
digital repeater set up by the Southern Ireland Repeater Group and it
will complement their other three digital installations located at West
Waterford, Waterford City and Mt. Leinster. Details are as follows: The
callsign is EI7FXD, the DMR ID is 272015 and the mode of operation is
DMR only. The location is Farmer's Cross, overlooking Cork City, and
the locator is IO51SU. The repeater output is on 430.250MHz and the
input is on 439.250MHz, that's a shift of plus 9.0MHz The access is
Colour Code One. On site for the installation were Neil EI3JE and John
EI8JA. Thanks to Anthony O'Sullivan and his colleague John who put the
antenna up in not so nice weather conditions and to John EI8IR of
Airwave Internet for the broadband connection. This repeater is a joint
venture between the Southern Ireland Repeater Group and local DMR
enthusiasts in the Cork City area. Many thanks for their contributions
towards the project to Don EI8DJ and Willie EI7CGB.
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YOTA Success in December

December was designated as Youngsters On The Air Month (YOTA) and young
operators were active around the world, mainly from the forty-seven
registered stations with the YOTA suffix. As we go to print, a total of
127,910 calls have been uploaded to the YOTA website with 47 per cent
on SSB, 25 per cent on CW, 20 per cent on FT8. Congratulations to the
station owners and operators of EI0YOTA which was organised by IRTS
Youth Officer Niall Donahoe EI6HIB. They have a total of 4,496 QSOs
logged on the website and made it in to the top ten list of stations on
the participating list. We look forward to hearing more about the
EI0YOTA operation in the future.
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On the Air next week

The CQ DX Marathon, organised by CQ Magazine runs for the full calendar
year and the aim is to work as many DXCC Entities and CQ Zones as
possible. There are many awards available and all information is
available on dxmarathon.com. The UK EI Contest Club's monthly 80 metres
SSB contest will held on Wednesday next the 6th from 2000 to 2100. The
exchange is your 6-character Grid Locator and no signal report should
be sent. Operation is from 3.650 to 3.775 MHz. Logs to be sent in
within one hour of the finish and results will be available an hour
later. A few more EI entrants would be appreciated. The Indonesian DX
SSB Contest runs for 24 hours on Saturday next the 9th and everyone
works everyone. The exchange is serial number plus report. It is single
operator only due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The UBA PSK63 Prefix
Contest starts at 12 noon on Saturday next and runs for 24 hours.
Maximum power allowed is 50 watts. The Straight Key Century Club run a
CW contest every month lasting 36 hours. The January event starts at 12
noon on Saturday next and finishes at midnight on Sunday. This event is
particularly suitable to newcomers to CW operating and full details
available on skccgroup.com. And now some DX news. Tony, 3D2AG, who has
been active as 3D2AG/p from Rotuma Island (Oceania-060) mainly on FT8,
with some CW, is due to go QRT on January 8th. Paulo, CT1FJZ, is now
active as D2FJZ from Angola. The length of his stay is unknown at this
time. Activity has been mainly on 20 meters SSB. QSL via CT1FJZ direct.
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The ARRL DX Century Club

The earliest DX award was the Worked all Continent Award issued by ARRL
but by the early 1930's, it became too easy and another measure of DX
achievement was needed. That turned out to be the DX Century Club where
the requirement was to work and confirm one hundred countries. That
award is still the most popular worldwide today and we have some listed
high achievers in Ireland. Honor Roll is achieved by working and
confirming at least 331 countries on the current DXCC Country list.
Starting 2021, we have six EI amateurs on the Honor Roll listings. Both
Declan EI6FR and John EI7BA are on the mixed, phone and CW lists, while
Peter EI7CC, Alan EI8EM and George EI6S are on the mixed and phone
lists and Dave EI9FBB is on the mixed list. Congratulations to them all
and we look forward to seeing a few more making the list during the
coming year. We also congratulate Tom EI4DQ who has the unique
distinction of having achieved DXCC on eleven bands, all the HF bands
plus 2 metres. Tom now has 153 entities confirmed on 2 metres. Six Echo
India amateurs have achieved DXCC on ten bands. Congratulations to
Trevor EI2GLB, Thos EI2JD, Dave EI3IO Declan EI6FR, John EI7BA and Dave
EI9FBB. All the details, updated at the end of each month, are
available on irts.ie/dxcc.
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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 087-6290574

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