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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday, January 30th 2022
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South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

The February meeting of The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group will be
held on Monday, the 7th of February, at 8:00 p.m. sharp at The Sweep
Bar, Adamstown, Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford, Eircode X91 H588. This will
be the first physical meeting of the club since February 2020, so we
are looking forward to seeing many familiar faces and also some new
club members who we have never met in person. Any non-members who are
interested in finding out more about the hobby or the group are also
very welcome on the night. There will be a lot to discuss on the night
including plans for the year ahead with some exciting new activations
in the pipeline, so we look forward to seeing a big crowd in
attendance.

The 89th Irish Radio Transmitters AGM weekend will take place over the
weekend of the 9th and 10th of April 2022 in the Woodford Dolmen Hotel,
Kilkenny Road, Carlow. Hotel rooms are almost all gone so if you want a
hotel room, please book it immediately. Tickets for the Gala Dinner can
now be pre-booked from John EI7IG for collection on arrival at the
event.

Any IRTS affiliated radio club or group are very welcome to attend the
SEARG Radio Rally on the 10th of April and promote their club or group.
Tables will be available free of charge, providing they do not sell any
radio gear or radio related items. For any club or group to secure a
place at the rally please contact the organizing committee by email to
irtsagm2022cw /at/ gmail.com as soon as possible but no later than by
Friday the 11th of March 2022 in order to be guaranteed a place. Tables
will be allocated on a first come first serve basis so book your table
early

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
of 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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80m AM Winter Contest

Since 1988, Sweden's national society SSA runs a twice yearly AM
contest on 80 meters, organized by the Arboga Radioklubb, inviting
anyone who can transmit with Amplitude Modulation to take part. A
translation of the SSA post reads: Saturday, February 5th, is the time
for the winter AM contest between 09:00 and 11:00 Swedish time, that is
08:00 to 10:00 GMT. Use AM on 3600-3750 kHz. Send your log with signal
reports, your name and your QTH to sm5b /at/ ssa.se withing 14 days.
Feel free to attach some background information and picture of your AM
station. Enjoy a quiet contest with a beautiful modulation, and hear
stations with portable equipment from the 40's, homebrew and modern
tranceivers with dusty AM buttons. The simple rules or this laid back
contest can be found at www.sm5b.se
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A Pirate on HF

During December of last year, and again throughout January, a pirate
station transmitted on 80 and 40 meters, using USB. The strong signal
was heard across Europe. The pirate broadcasted italian and english
language messages against Covid-19 measures, but the audio was
frequently distorted by overmodulation. The German DARC DF-team found
an approximate location in Italy, and informed the Bundesnetzagentur
who in turn contacted their Italian counterparts. The broadcasts have
stopped since.
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ARDC Grants

The Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) Foundation is funding
Amateur Radio related projects through individual grants. The latest
recipient is the Internet Archive. They have been awarded nearly
$900,000, which will be used to build the 'Digital Library of Amateur
Radio and Communications'. The Internet Archive is a nonprofit library
of a large collection of free books, movies, software, music, and
websites. The Internet Archive said in its proposal that the "the DLARC
will be both an education program building a unique and unparalleled
collection of primary and secondary resources, but also an innovative
technical project that will build a digital library that combines both
digitized print materials and [original] digital content,"

The ARDC grant program stems from the proceeds of the July 2019 sale of
some 4 million unused consecutive AMPRNet internet addresses. Using
those funds, ARDC established a program of grants and scholarships in
support of communications and networking research, with a strong
emphasis on amateur radio. More infomation can be found in the ARDC
pages of www.ampr.org
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Activations and Callsigns

Axel, DL6KVA, is on air as PZ5KV from Suriname until the 10th of this
month on all HF bands, using CW only. Activity will be on various HF
bands using CW. QSL via OQRS, direct and bureau.

Two stations are about to go on air in the Maldives. Henry, LU4DXU is
using the call sign 8Q7AH from Dharavandhoo Island, IOTA AS-013 between
February 8-15th on HF with QRO and monoband dipoles. QSL via his home
callsign direct.

And Karel, OK2WM and Vlad, OK2WX will be active as 8Q7WM and 8Q7WX from
Innahura Island, also IOTA AS-013 between the 12th of February 12th and
the 8th of March. They use only 160, 80 and 40 meters, CW and SSB. QSL
via their home callsigns.

This Sunday, Listeners of this Bulletin can hear a very active 4L2M
from Georgia in the CQ WW 160 Meter CW contest. Also, the Balkan HF
Contest and The Canadian Winter Field Day are under way. You may not be
interested in contesting, but you may be able to work stations that are
otherwise hard to catch.

Nobby, G0VJG, is preparing to activate Rockall, IOTA EU-189, for one
week in June, we'll report in more detail closer to date.

Contesters from EI have made their mark on the recent Hungarian DX
Contest, Megan EI5LA, Martin Ei8GP, Ryan Ei8KW and Peter EI7CC entered
with good scores, we await the official results. Congratulations to
Megan and Ryan for a very impressive results in the YOTA section.
__________________________________________________________________

Amsat News

Felix Paez, EA4GQS, AMSAT-EA Mission Manager reports that both their
newly deployed satellites are working, except that the antennas have
not yet properly extended. However, the AMSAT-EA team confirms that,
based on the reception of FSK, CW, the FM voice beacon and the
telemetry data that has been decoded, it can be said that the satellite
is working perfectly, otherwise one would only hear telemetry. HADES,
like EASAT-2, is transmitting weak signals, weaker than the ones of
EASAT-2, most likely because the on-board computer has not yet managed
to deploy the antennas either, although it will continue trying
regularly. The reason the signals are suspected to be weaker at Hades
is that the antennas are more tightly folded than those of EASAT-2. The
report concludes with an appeal: "We kindly ask you, if you have very
high gain antennas, to try to receive them, specially Hades. If we
could decode telemetry it would be very helpful for us. Until antennas
are deployed it will be very difficult to use their repeaters or to
receive any SSTV camera images from Hades, but we hope that this will
happen sooner or later, at least because even if the computer doesn't
succeed applying heat to the resistor where the thread is attached,
with time, the thread should break due to the space environment
conditions. Details of the status and orbital elements can be found on
www.amsat-ea.org
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The Propagation Horoscope

Although the Solar flux dropped to arund 100 units again since last
weekend's geomagnetic disturbances and brief blackouts from the grazing
by an M-flare originating in the still active region 2929. The Sun is
remains very active with a solar wind at around 400km/s and an elevated
particle count of around eight protons per cubic centimeter. The flux
values will increase again from Monday onwards, and as the geomagnetic
field has for now settled again one can expect good DX on all HF bands.
Like last week, the daytime MUF2 for long hops will rise into the 10
meter band, as confirmed by the very useful website muf.hb9vqq.ch. The
maps are updated every 15 minutes. Expect unsettled conditions again
for next weekend, as several very active regions are rotating into
view.

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.ie for
automatic forwarding to both the radio and printed news services. The
deadline is midnight on Friday.

[C]
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