• IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 22 January 2023

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    This Week's News

    IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 22 January 2023
    __________________________________________________________________

    Silent Keys

    Anthony Riggs, EI1240, SK

    The sudden death occurred of Anthony Riggs EI1240 from Lavally, Tuam,
    Co Galway, on Thursday, the 5th of January. Anthony was an avid radio
    enthusiast, a SWL member of IRTS since the early 1990's, and also very
    active on 11m and PMR 446. We send our deepest condolences to his
    Mother Maureen, Brother Raymond, and to Anthony's extended family and
    his friends in the Galway CB Radio Club.

    James (Jimmy) Tighe, EI8GD, SK

    James, husband of the late Mary Tighe and predeceased by his brothers
    Mattie and Johnny, sister Ethna, father of Jacqueline, Rosemary,
    Matthew and Patrick will be sadly missed by his siblings Charlie and
    Rosemary, his extended family, good neighbours, and friends. Reposing
    in R. Healy and Son Funeral Home, Pollerton Castle, on Monday from 4pm.
    to 7pm. Removal on Tuesday morning to St. Fintan's Church,
    Ballinabranna, to arrive for funeral Mass at 11am. Burial afterwards in
    the adjoining cemetery. May James Rest in Peace.
    __________________________________________________________________

    South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC

    The January meeting of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC
    will take place on Monday, the 30th of January 2023, at 8pm sharp at
    the New Community Men's Shed, Ozanam Centre, Coffee House Lane,
    Waterford. Although the Ozanam Centre has no Eircode, it is located
    directly behind the St. Vincent De Paul shop on Henrietta Street which
    has the Eircode X91 FEK1, making it a good starting point for anyone
    who might be interested in coming along, but isn't sure how to find our
    new location. New members, or anyone interested in learning more about
    amateur radio or the group are as always very welcome to attend.

    Members of the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will be QRV as
    EI2IMD on Saturday April 22nd for the International Marconi Day 2023.
    The station will be active from Tramore, Co. Waterford. Tramore has a
    direct connection with Marconi as he often stayed there with his aunt
    Mrs. Cookman who resided at the Cove, Tramore. Special thanks to the
    organisers the Cornish Radio Amateur Club for organising this special
    event. More details will be made known in the coming days on the SEARG
    Facebook and EI2IMD QRZ pages. For more information on the
    International Marconi Day please see www.gx4crc.com

    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 find them on Facebook.
    __________________________________________________________________

    Limerick Clare Amateur Radio Club Rally 2023

    The LCARC Rally 2023 will take place in the Temple Gate Hotel in Ennis,
    Co. Clare, Eircode V95 H0XK on Sunday, the 26th of February 2023. The
    doors will open at 11am. The usual traders, including Long
    Communications, AirMast, and MakerShop will be in attendance, and LCARC
    welcomes the South Eastern Amateur Radio Group SEARG to the Rally.
    Tables for the rally can be booked by contacting Dermot EI2GT with an
    email to dermotgleeson1 /at/ gmail.com . Also, individuals can email
    Dermot if they wish to have a list of their items for sale published on
    the LCARC web site at www.limerickclareama teurradioclub.ie . On the
    Saturday night the IRTS Shortwave Listeners Club will be holding their
    informal dinner in the Hotel. Those wishing to make reservations with
    the Hotel for Saturday night can do so by contacting them at info /at/
    templegatehotel.com or telephone 065-6823300. When making reservation
    for Saturday night please quote the reference number 84187 to get
    special Rally rate at 99 Euro for single occupancy, and 109 Euro for
    double occupancy. Dinner in the Dining room is for 35 Euro, and Bar
    food is also available. The Rally and the Saturday night events are
    open to anyone with an interest in Radio or associated interests. More
    information will be posted on the web site in the lead up to Rally.
    __________________________________________________________________

    SWL wins Young Scientists of the Year

    SWL Shane O'Connor from Kildysart, Co Clare, along with his teammate
    Liam Carew were announced as the winners of this year's BT Young
    Scientist and Technology Exhibition at the RDS in Dublin. Shane and
    Liam, both aged 18 and in sixth year in the Abbey School in Tipperary
    won with their project Assessing the impact of second-level education
    on key aspects of adolescents' life and development. The pair will also
    represent Ireland at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists in
    Brussels in September, and at the 64th Annual London International
    Youth Science Forum this summer.
    __________________________________________________________________

    The AM Rally

    The AM Rally, an annual celebration of this mode will take place on HF
    from the 3rd to the 6th of February. It's not necessary to have a boat
    anchor for full carrier amplitude modulation. Modern radios, including
    software-defined rigs, as well as military radios, modified broadcast
    radios and home brew models are capable of helping operators take part
    in this event. Information about logging your contacts and noting your
    rig and your output power class can be found on the website amrally.com
    . There are suggestions on how to prepare, as well as a guide to where
    and when you can find the most active AM action going on, from 6m to
    160 meters. AM cannot be used on 60 meters in the United States,
    however.
    __________________________________________________________________

    ARISS

    Amateurs and others around the world may listen in on contacts between
    amateurs operating in schools, and allowing students to interact with
    astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. The
    down-link frequency on which to listen is 145.800 MHz worldwide. The
    cross-band repeater continues to be active. If any crew member is so
    inclined, all they have to do is pick up the microphone, raise the
    volume up, and talk on the cross-band repeater. An Astronaut's typical
    daily schedule is organised around a 12 hour work day. The crew's usual
    waking period is 07.30 to 19.30 UTC. The most common times to find a
    crew member making casual contacts are about one hour after waking and
    before sleeping, when they have personal time. They're usually free
    most of the weekend, as well. For more information about schedules,
    frequencies and modes, please visit www.ariss.org and www.amsat.org
    __________________________________________________________________

    WRTC

    The World Radiosport Team Championship is an on-site ham radio
    competition held every four years. Previous WRTCs have been held in
    Seattle in 1990, San Francisco in 1996, Slovenia in 2000, Finland in
    2002, Brazil in 2006, Russia in 2010, Boston in 2014, and the last one
    in Germany in 2018. The 2022 event in Italy was postponed, now taking
    place on the 8th and 9th of April of this year. Many special event
    stations are already on the air announcing the upcoming World
    Radiosport Team Championship . Here are two in particular to listen for
    as they operate in Indonesia and New Zealand until the end of the
    month, currently audible during mornings with good signals and even
    better operators. Listen for 8BØRARI, the Indonesian Amateur Radio
    Organization ops are active on 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m, using Morse and
    SSB. ZL6WRTC already logged just shy of one million QSOs during the
    first three weeks of January, probably an all-time record.
    __________________________________________________________________

    HF Contests

    CW operators will be busy on Wednesday evening, starting at 19:00 UTC
    with the one hour duration CW-Ops Test on the 160 to 10m contest
    segments, then switching to 80m for the UKEICC CW contest, from 20:00
    to 21:00 UTC. Starting an hour later at 22:00 UTC, and running for
    twelve hours, the Australia Day Contest on 160 to 10m CW, SSB and
    digital modes will be worth checking out. Maybe not for a serious
    entry, but as an opportunity to get a few VKs, ZLs and P2s into the
    log. The CQ World-Wide 160-Meter Contest will be the first big CW event
    of the year, the 'Gentleman's Band' CW segment will be packed from
    22:00 UTC on Friday, until 8:00 UTC on Sunday, a good opportunity to
    catch exotic prefixes.
    __________________________________________________________________

    The Propagation Horoscope

    An acoustic technique called helio-seismic holography is used to find
    out what is going on on the far side of the sun. As the sound waves
    bounce around the interior of the sun and are reflected back and forth,
    they are encoded with information about unseen regions. This
    information can then be used to build maps of the sun's far-side and
    effectively reveal strongly active regions on the opposite side of our
    star. This is then combined with observations from ESA's telescopes
    parked at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points, giving us more reliable
    predictions, thought impossible during previous solar cycles. The
    re-emergence of last weekend's highly active region and the intensity
    of the C and X flares fireworks that followed was no surprise. We now
    see a disturbed magnetic field with kP values ranging from 3 to 5,
    likely to stay in that range given the numerous flares seen. It's worth
    noting that since the Sun awoke for cycle 25, no major X-ray flare and
    no CME has been directly Earth-bound. For now, all higher bands produce
    excellent DX, although the MUF varies strongly from day to day. In the
    absence of geomagnetic disturbances the lower bands benefit from good
    winter night propagation, especially during morning grey-line.

    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.

    [C]
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