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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday April 18th 2021
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IRTS Annual General Meeting

The Annual General Meeting of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society will
take place on the Zoom platform on Saturday next at 1100. Full details
were published in the Spring edition of Echo Ireland. The closing date
for requests to attend the AGM was Saturday April 17th and no further
requests can be accepted. The Zoom link for the meeting will be emailed
to all attendees during the coming week. Clubs will be giving short
promotional presentations on their activities in the hour leading up to
the meeting and there is still room for a few more clubs to
participate. Contact Declan Horan EI9FVB for details.
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IARU Monitoring System

The latest International Amateur Radio Union Monitoring System monthly
report is now available for viewing on the IARU Region 1 website at
iaru-r1 dot org. About sixty percent of all observations reported refer
to over the horizon radar transmissions with a few stations suspected
of sending short bursts and moving frequency regularly. Two CW
transmissions were conspicuous. One on 7039.6 kHz is at always the same
times (the hour + 02, 22, 42) for about one minute, each a sequence of
10 x three numbers plus the letter V, for example. Around 7074.8 kHz,
groups of continuous dashes or groups of dashes were frequently
observed in CW. The purpose and origin of these signals are unknown so
far. IRTS is an active participant in the Region 1 monitoring system
through the good work carried out on your behalf by Michael Foertig
EI3GYB.
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South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

Members of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will be QRV as
EI2IMD on Saturday April 24th for International Marconi Day 2021. The
station was to be active solely from Tramore, Co. Waterford. Tramore
has a direct connection with Marconi as he often stayed there with his
aunt, a Mrs. Cookman who resided at the Cove, Tramore. Due to the
current travel situation, the organisers the Cornish Radio Amateur Club
have allowed the EI2WRC members to run the special call from their own
homes. A special QSL card will be made available once printed. For more
info keep an eye on the SEARG Facebook and EI2IMD QRZ pages. For more
information on the International Marconi Day please see www.gx4crc.com
For anyone that 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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Shannon Basin Club Nets

The popular Shannon Basin Radio Club nets on top band and 80 metres
will shortly be coming to an end for the summer months. As the evenings
are getting longer and QRM is increasing, the last top band net will be
on April 26th and the last 80 metre net will be on the April 29th. Both
nets will resume again in the autumn. Their two meter net will move to
Sunday evenings at 2000 from Sunday May 2nd. This net will continue to
be on the club's repeater EI2CAR located at Castlerea, County
Roscommon. The output is on 145.775MHz and the access tone is 88.5Hz
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KARG participate as official award station in IMD 2021

Members of Kerry Amateur Radio Group will be QRV for International
Marconi Day on Saturday April 24th as an IMD Award station, using the
call EI6YXQ from Ballybunion, County Kerry. International Marconi Day
is a 24 hour amateur radio event that is held annually to celebrate the
birth of Marconi on April 25th 1874. Marconi made the first east to
west trans-Atlantic voice transmission from Ballybunion in March 1919
using the callsign YXQ. For further details on the history of the
former Marconi radio station in Ballybunion, including a video of the
EI100YXQ events in 2019, which Princess Elettra attended, please see
the EI6YXQ QRZ page.
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On the Air next week

The Polish SP DX RTTY Contest is on next weekend on 80 to 10 metres
(excluding the WARC bands, as is the case for all contests) from 1200z
on Saturday 24th to 1200z on Sunday. SP stations will send report and
province while all others send report and serial number. Multipliers
are Polish provinces and DXCC countries. The Swiss Helvetia Contest
starts at 1300z on Saturday next and finishes at 1300 on Sunday. The
modes are CW, SSB and Digital. HB stations will send report and canton
while all others send report and serial number. For details on all
contests log on to the WA7BNM contest calendar at contestcalendar.com.

DX news Joe, W8GEX, reports in his "60 Meter DX" newsletter that there
have been 245 countries on 60 metres so far with some great DX being
worked. Anyone interested in this band should log on to
60metresonline.com where lots of information on 60 metre operation is
available. Belgian Amateurs may replace their normal ON prefixes with a
special OS prefix starting on April 18th until December 12th. This is
to mark International Amateur Radio on April 18th and the first
transatlantic radio transmission by Marconi on December 12th 1901.
Yudel CO7XV is now active as PZ2YT from Suriname, being heard on 20
metres SSB. See QRZ.com for details. Islands on the Air enthusiasts
should listen for Steve VK6SJ who will be active from Oceania-138 on
Yam, Coconut and Thursday Islands from April 27th to May 4th. Operation
will be mainly on FT8. Look out for GB75ISWL on most bands and modes
for the rest of the year celebrating the 75th anniversary of the
International Short Wave League. See iswl.org.uk for full details.
Special event station HV9SMG will be on from the Vatican on Saturday
next April 24th. Bands mentioned are 40, 20 and 10 metres on SSB and
digi. QSL via IK0CNA
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Wanted: DX Editor for Echo Ireland

Echo Ireland Editor Veronica Holohan is still seeking a volunteer to
fill the role of DX correspondent for the quarterly IRTS publication.
If you are interested, please email newsteam at irts dot ie. Our thanks
to outgoing correspondent Don Brennan EI6IL who did an outstanding job
writing `HF Happenings' since Summer 2018. Articles for publication in
Echo Ireland are always very welcome and the deadline for inclusion in
the summer edition is May 30th.
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Contest University

With the cancellation of the Dayton Hamvention this year, a major event
associated with the Hamvention, the Contest University, has decided to
go online and it will be live, via a Zoom webinar, on May 20th starting
with the first presentation at 1300z. Eight experienced speakers will
deliver 45 minute presentations with 15 minutes for questions and
answers on a wide variety of contest related topics. Entry to Contest
University is free and registrations will open on April 21st on
contestuniversity dot com. Four Icom radios will be given away in
random drawings during the event but you must be registered and present
to win. This is a great event to learn more about contesting at all
levels.
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EI2DKH Trans-Atlantic Beacon on 144 MHz

The 144MHz two-way trans-Atlantic beacon operated by Tony Baldwin EI8JK
is located at Kilcrohane, on the Sheep's Head peninsula in west County
Cork, in locator square IO51dn. Tony says that EI2DKH will be back on
air for the 2021 tropo season, probably before the end of April.
Transmit frequency is fixed by licence to 144.488 MHz and the receive
frequency will be determined by the transmit frequency of an identical
beacon in St. John's, Newfoundland being set up by Frank VO1HP. The
antennas for the Sheep's head beacon were donated by Innovantennas
while the rest of the station was provided by Tony EI8JK. More details
on modes and times later.
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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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