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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 03 July 2022
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IRTS Radio News

ELARC, the East Leinster Amateur Radio Club continued the portable
nature of the station and transmitted this week's news on 4m from the
Seahan Mountain, near Kilbride Army Camp. If you heard Sunday's
transmission on 70.400 Mhz at 10:30 local time, but were unable to call
in, please post a receiption report on our forum at irts.groups.io,
this will help to evaluate the new location.

A rota has been worked out for the 40m Radio News Bulletin, but we are
still lacking volunteers for the 80m news. Licensed EI Hams with a good
NVIS antenna for 80m are asked to consider becoming a news reader, even
if it just for back-up duty.
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Galway Radio Experimenters Club EI4GRC

The July meeting of the Galway Radio Experimenters Club EI4GRC will
take place tomorrow night, Monday the 4th of July 2022 at 8.00 p.m.
sharp at The Menlo Park Hotel, Terryland, Headford Road, Galway,
eircode H91 E98N. There will also be virtual access to the meeting,
please contact the Club Secretary via email secretary /at/
galwayradio.com for access details. The club website is
www.galwayradio.com and anyone is welcome to come to our club nights or
contact the secretary for more information.
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Champions

Next weekend's IARU Region 1 Championship will see EI0HQ back on air.
Anyone wishing to operate the headquarter station call-sign EI0HQ on
one of the bands is asked to coordinate with the IRTS, so as to avoid
multiple stations operating on the same band. Christine, EI5LC and
Stefan, EI4KU get the ball rolling by covering the 160m band, and also
making their two shacks available for visitors who'd like to get on the
air. Watch for further announcements on our forum at irts.groups.io
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Harec Exams

A final version of the HAREC Sample Paper is now available on the IRTS
website. A special thanks goes to the team that worked diligently on
the content and of course to all the tutors and team at the Shortwave
Listeners Club for helping to prepare candidates. The next HAREC Exam
is scheduled for Saturday, the 9th of July at the Maldron Hotel,
Whitestown Way, Tallaght, Dublin 24. The eircode is D24 XC9W. There is
both a morning and afternoon sitting for the exam. Registration for
morning sitting is 9.30 am, with the exam beginning at 10 am and ending
at 12 noon. Registration for the afternoon sitting is at 1 pm, with the
exam beginning at 1.30 pm and ending at 3.30 pm. Candidates are
reminded to arrive in plenty of time on the day of the exam and direct
any queries in the meantime to irts.exams /at/ irts.ie We wish all
candidates the very best and look forward to hearing new EI calls on
the air very soon.
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Carribean Emergency Networks activated

Tropical Storm Bonnie made landfall in Nicaragua and northern Costa
Rica. Amateur Radio emergency networks of the countries in the area
have been activated. Until at Tuesday, possibly for longer, avoid the
use of the following frequencies 3.766 Mhz 3.798 MHz, 7.060 MHz, 7.098
MHz, 7.120 MHz, 11.198 MHz and 14.198 MHz. This list of IARU-R1
relevant frequencies is based on various announcements made by the
emergency coordinators of several countries around the Carribean.
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Region 1 News

After more than eight years of negotiations with their telecoms
authorities, SZR, representing Slovakian hams, can finally report some
progress. Not yet enacted, new legislation reflects changes in the
field of digital communication technologies, define them and determine
the conditions for their use. From a practical point of view, however,
the biggest change concerns the N-class license holders, who can only
broadcast in limited sections of some shortwave bands. The new
regulations will allow them to operate on all bands with a maximum
power of 100 watts. The new frequency table will also include the 630,
60 and 4m bands, so it will no longer be necessary to apply for them
separately.

A presentation by Barry Lewis G4SJH, chairman of IARU Region-1 spectrum
affairs on the work being done in defending the interests of the
Amateur Services in the 1240-1300 MHz band is now available via the
IARU website. Work continues to develop the coexistence studies between
the amateur services in the 23cm band and the radio navigation
satellite services operating across the band. New studies were
submitted by France, China and the Russian Federation. The scale of the
problem for the amateur services is becoming clear. For example, the
studies predict that even a 10W 23cm band station could cause
interference to RNSS receivers at up to 30km on the antenna main beam
heading. Although the level of amateur activity and the density of
users is quite low compared to other more popular bands, the issue
remains that from a regulatory perspective as the amateur services are
required to not cause harmful interference to RNSS services like the
European GALILEO system.
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On The Air

The'DXCC Most Wanted' list has been updated on the 28th of June.
Topping the list is North Korea in 1st place, unlikely to appear on the
air anytime soon. Bouvet Island is in second place and Crozet Island in
third place, with both islands to be activated by DXpeditions later
this year. Closer to home and with less fanfare, Bo, OZ1DJJ will
activate Greenland. He'll be QRV until next weekend as OX3LX from
Upernarvik Island, IOTA NA-134. He can be heard on all HF bands, with
an extra effort made for 6 and 4 meters. QSL via OZ0J.

The 2022 IRTS VHF/UHF Field Day is still underway until 15:00 local
time Sunday. Listeners of this Bulletin on Sunday are encouraged to
switch on the vhf gear and give extra points to the field-day stations
before the end of the event.

The 13 Colonies special event is running until the 7th of July. There
is a lot of CW, phone and data modes activity. For anyone looking for
some on-air practice with a simple exchange, mostly with east coast US
stations and bonus stations in the UK and France, this is good starting
point. www.dxsummit.fi has a list of call-signs and frequencies. also
see www.13colonies.us for info.

There is a steady increase in DX reports for 40Mhz, starting around
mid-May with digital mode contacts between Slovenia and South America,
and between the USA and Chile. Robbie, EI2IP is reporting remarkable
contacts on the 8m band and above, including an SWL report from ZP4KFX
in Paraguay on the 40Mhz band.
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The Propagation Horoscope

Since the onset of the current solar cycle the European Space Agency's
Swarm satellites, which measure the magnetic field around Earth, are
sinking toward the atmosphere at a faster rate than during the Solar
Minimum, when satellites were descending about two and a half
kilometers a year. The sink rate between December and April has
increased to a rate of 20 kilometers per year. Our star has woken up,
spewing more solar wind and generating more sunspots, solar flares and
coronal mass ejections at a growing rate, all causing an upwelling of
the atmosphere. That means that the denser air shifts upwards to higher
altitudes. Denser air means higher drag for the satellites, especially
for orbits of up to around 400 km. This also affects the ionospheric
propagation, increasing the number of Sporadic-E events, and it is
speculated that this causes the ionospheric mid-summer dip to give a
relatively low daytime MUF. Although current observations show that 20m
will be open almost around-the-clock, Sporadic E will gift the best DX
on the higher bands, especially on 40 to 70 MHz. Brief tropospheric
openings on 4 and 2m can be expected for the next few days, but longer
opening will not happen until the unsettled weather systems have
passed.

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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