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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 25 September 2022
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Club News

We start with a reminder that the next HAREC examination will be held
on Saturday, the 15th of October 2022 at both the Maldron Hotel,
Tallaght, Dublin, and the Clayton Silversprings Hotel, Cork at 11.30
a.m., Registration will begin from 11 a.m. Candidates will be contacted
directly regarding venue preference and registration requirements, but
if any candidates have not been contacted already or have any further
queries regarding the exam, please contact irts.exams /at/ gmail.com
for more details. Please also note that the closing date for receipt of
applications is the 30th of September 2022. No applications for the
15th of October examination can be accepted beyond this date.

The National Short Wave Listeners Club (NSWLC) would like to announce a
new HAREC online training course. Class Foxtrot will start on 3rd of
November 2022. Class Foxtrot will consist of 24 classes ending on the
4th of May 2023. The course is free but membership of the NSWLC is
compulsory. There are no prerequisites for this course, other than a
genuine desire to study for an amateur radio licence, and to take and
pass the Irish HAREC exam. The upcoming course is based on the new
Irish exam syllabus, introduced earlier this year. The course uses the
upcoming IRTS Study Guide, an almost 300-page learning resource.
Members of Class Echo have significantly contributed to the new guide.
As a result of their valuable feedback, Class Foxtrot contains six more
sessions than its predecessor in order to better focus on the areas
that are new to the current syllabus. The course will be held via the
Zoom platform and sessions must be attended live. Classes will be held
each Thursday from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. local time. For more
information about The National Short Wave Listeners Club (NSWLC) or to
join please see www.swl.ie

This weekend Scout leaders Marty EI2IAB and John EI3ISB have a Radio
station on the air from Portlick Scout Camp in County Westmeath. The
grid locator is IO63BI, and the Worked All Ireland Square is WAI N02.
They are promoting our hobby to other Scouters and Guiders from around
the country. Marty (EI2IAB) says that they are on 80 to 10 meters, on
VHF and UHF, and also on the local repeaters with the call-sign
EI0YOTA. Also on the air this weekend are the Copper Coast Scouts and
the Tramore 36, helped by The Collective Communication. They are
experimenting with their self build kits, participate in a radio Fox
hunt, followed by a treasure hunt, where teams of six use maps and
radios to solve clues leading them to the treasure.

The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC is active from The
Waterford and Suir Valley Railway station Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford for
the Railways On The Air event today, Sunday, the 25th of September.
Keep a listen out on 80m, 40m and other HF bands as conditions allow.
The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group would like to thank the manager
Maria Kyte and all the staff of The Waterford and Suir Valley Railway
for all their help and allowing us access to the railway station to do
this event again this year. For more information about the WSVR please
see www.wsvrailway.ie . The September meeting of the South Eastern
Amateur Radio Group EI2WRC will take place tomorrow night, Monday, the
26th of September at 8.00 p.m. sharp at The Sweep Bar, Adamstown,
Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford, Eircode X91 H588. New members or anyone
interested in learning more about amateur radio or the group are as
always very welcome to attend. 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.

The Shannon Basin Radio Club announce that their weekly SSB nets will
recommence at the end of September. The hugely popular nets draw in
stations from all across Ireland, the UK, and further afield. The 80m
net will restart on Thursday, the 29th of September, starting at 9 p.m.
local time in the upper end of the 80m band. The exact frequency will
be posted on Shannon Basin Radio Club's Facebook page and Twitter
account before the net starts. All are very welcome to join, especially
newly licensed amateurs, QRP stations, and portable operators.
Information about the restart of the 160m topband weekly net will be
advised at a later date. Anyone wishing to learn more, submit SWL
reports, or interested about the wide range of club activities are
welcome to contact Shannon Basin Radio Club by email at admin /at/
sbrc.ie or via the club's social media channels.

On Tuesday, the 4th of October at 19:30, the South Dublin Radio Club
will host a talk by Tony EI5EM relating to QRP construction and
operation. Tony's talk was very well received at this year's GI-QRP
convention, so this is a great opportunity for attendees to ask
questions and get information from someone who is very experienced in
this area. The talk will be held in the downstairs conference room of
Ballyroan Community Centre. There is limited capacity at the venue. Any
non-club members wishing to attend are asked to contact
southdublinradioclub /at/ gmail.com . Alternatively, the talk will be
live streamed via Zoom. Should you wish joins us via Zoom, please email
us for login details.
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Contesting

UKEICC have just published the awards and plaques for the 2022 DX CW
Contest which took place over the weekend of 30th of April and the 1st
of May 2022. Congratulations to David EI5KG for winning the Paddy Smith
Memorial Cup, sponsored by the IRTS There were 538 valid entries amidst
poor propagation that weekend. Dave will be active as EI5G, the bonus
station in the upcoming one hour duration UKEICC 80m CW Contest on
Wednesday, starting at 20:00 zulu. See www.ukeicc.com for details about
this very popular contest.

VHF/UHF specialist Roger (EI8KN) was the only entrant from EI in the
IARU-R1 50 and 70 MHz contest in April. He logged 131 valid contacts in
6 hours, earning him 3rd place, with his furthest 50 MHz contact over
3682 km to Cyprus. A very good result considering the absence of
sporadic-E propagation during the contest, normally helping stations at
the fringes of Region-1. Many other stations logged EI8KN as their
furthest contact. Roger went on to better that result during his six
hour stint on 70Mhz, coming first in his class.

The SSB leg of the 77th Oceania DX Contest will start at 06:00 UTC next
Saturday, and will run for 24 hours. The exchange is signal report and
serial number. The multipliers are weighted in favour of topband and
80m contacts, a good opportunity for DXCC chasers to fill in the gaps
for the lower bands. The CW leg takes place the following Saturday and
Sunday. Details can be found on www.oceaniadxcontest.com

Next Sunday, 2 October, the RSGB DX Contest takes place between 06:00
and 9:00 UTC. Using CW and SSB on the 3.5 and 28 MHz bands where
contests are permitted, the exchange is signal report and serial
number. The RSGB DX contest is concurrent with other contests whose
rules specify alternative exchanges. When making contest QSOs with
participants in other events, please log a 'sent' serial number for
each QSO, whether or not you have actually sent it. Details about this,
and other RSGB contests can be found on www.rsgbcc.org
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New RSGB EMF Calculator

The RSGB has released an updated version of their online EMF Calculator
to help radio amateurs to check EMF exposure limits. Have a look this
easy to use tool at www.rsgb.org/emfcalculator
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The Propagation Horoscope

Within the harsh conditions of sun's outer atmosphere, the corona,
atoms are stripped of their electrons, forming the fourth state of
matter called plasma. Supercomputers at NASA have been used to model
the exact movement of electrons and ions in the solar plasma, examining
the generation of high-energy particles when magnetic fields in the
corona accelerate electrons and ions close to the speed of light and
then launching them into space. When filaments of magnetic fields
become unstable and get pinched off, they can take some plasma with
them and help launch an excess of high energy particles into space, as
happened on Friday noon at around 13:30 UTC. A wide filament of
magnetism near the sun's southwestern limb became unstable and erupted,
resulting in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and a strong radio burst.
Not direct towards Earth, it will nevertheless combine with effects of
gaseous material flowing out from an equatorial hole in the sun's
atmosphere, likely leading to G-class geomagnetic storms over the
weekend, creating some interesting propagation conditions on HF. Geos
16 reports a background x-ray flux at the class C1 level. As of
writing, the Flux values are at a healthy 130 km per second. Barring
further surprises the good conditions on the higher bands over the past
few days will improve further. The night-time MUF will briefly drop
below the 20m band, the day-time MUF will not quite reach the 10m band
yet, meaning that early birds will be rewarded with 20 and 15m DX
towards Asia and Oceania. The lower bands have come alive again,
especially 40m with both short and long path openings.

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 Friday noon.

[C]
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