IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 20 November 2022

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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 20 November 2022
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Club Reports from NSWLC, SEARG, LCARC and SBRC

Today's bulletin starts with the monthly report to the IRTS Committee
by the secretaries of the IRTS affiliated clubs.

The first one is from the National Shortwave Listeners Club: As of
today,NSWLC has 143 members, all of whom are current IRTS members.
There are six further applications in the pipeline. 24 new members have
joined in the last month to participate in our HAREC course. Nine of
our members passed the recent HAREC exam. HAREC Training Class Foxtrot
has commenced two weeks ago. There are 63 students attending via Zoom.
We are very glad to have recruited three new tutors from amongst the
previous students. They are co-presenting the subjects with the the
remaining six regular tutors. The NSWLC have started a new mentorship
programme. A group of six licensed, active amateurs, our former
students, have been each allocated up to nine new members to follow up
throughout and after the current course. Their mission is to do
whatever would help the students pass the exam, and more importantly,
to become active on the air as soon as possible. Being mentored is not
compulsory. We hope that many new friendships will be made this way
too. The Club has continued to meet every Sunday, except the bank
holiday weekend. Attendance was 30 to 43 each Sunday, via Zoom. The
16th of October was about First stations and Small garden antennas, and
there was an exam "post-mortem". On the 23rd of Octber: Remote
operation, remotely led by Megan EI5LA, Magnetic loop antennas, and an
Intro to home brewing. On the 6th of November: Moon, Satellites, Space!
Celebrating 35 years of first EI to North America EME in 1987. Draft
3.0.22 of the Study Guide has been released to all club members on the
11th of November 2022. It now has 340 pages with many illustrations. It
is only missing one chapter: the final chapter that still needs to be
rewritten is "Antennas". Rafal hopes to have this work finished in the
coming week.

Mark Kilmartin, Ei4FNB reports for the South Eastern Amateur Radio
Group: "Sadly I have to report the passing of one of our members in the
last month, Peter Rochford was an SWL that had been working on his
license. We had a very good October meeting where we welcomed Larry
McGriskin to the meeting, there was a very good discussion between
Larry and the members. The club will be meeting in a new location for
November with an eye on this being our new location going forward, the
advantages of the new location is more flexibility to run workshops and
such, also giving us the option to meet on Mondays other than our usual
monthly meeting if we want to run work shops, classes etc. We continue
to run our weekly Zoom meetings as well, which we are carrying over
from Covid days, we will continue to run these social get-togethers as
long as there is demand.

Simon Kenny, Ei7ALB writes for the Limerick and Clare Amateur Radio
Club: Club activities over the past month included welcoming IRTS
President Larry Ei9CN, to the LCARC club station Ei4SAM, located in the
Shannon Aviation Museum, on the 29th of October. The visit was an
opportunity for the President to see how the PAR funding was used by
the Club in promoting amateur radio and also to meet some members of
the Club. The President was made aware of the footfall through the
museum from groups of primary and secondary students to scout groups,
various other groups and the general public. Ideas on supporting
initiatives such as offering recognition to Transition Year students,
on completing a module, were conveyed to the President. St. Mary's
Scout Group Limerick 2nd and 6th participated in JOTA from the club
station. Club members introduced the scouts to the many aspects of
amateur radio. LCARC welcomed three of the Foxtrot students Xi, Lukasz
and Xiao to the Club station during the JOTA weekend. They were
introduced to the station set up and under the watchful eye of Brendan
Ei0CZ, Xi made a few contacts for the club log. They were also privy to
the presentations on amateur radio given to the JOTA participants.
Footfall through the museum has been good over the past month, when
several Transition Year students were introduced to Morse Code by Harry
Ei2KL. Michael Ei2IX took them through the various meteorological
measuring instruments which forms part of the Ei4SAM station. Chairman
Dermot Ei2GT gave his usual comprehensive introduction to Amateur
Radio.

The Shannon Basin Radio Club Report was sent in by Keith Nolan Ei5IN,
he starts with the Jamboree On the Air 2022. Led by Marty Ei2IAB, the
club took part in 2022 Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) event in October in
Portlick Scout campsite, near Athlone in Co. Westmeath. Under the
guidance of Shannon Basin Radio Club members Marty Ei2IAB, Anthony
Ei6GGB, Owen Ei4GGB, and Keith Ei5IN, the scouts from the 17th Meath,
Longwood Scout Group were able to discover the world of wireless radio
techniques via QSOs with stations all over Europe. Owen Ei4GGB used his
expertise to help the scouts learn about electronics kit construction
in the scout facilities also. Club members were interviewed by Dublin
City FM where they talked about amateur radio and how to get started in
addition to promoting the Irish Radio Transmitters Society. Shannon
Basin Radio Club has restarted their weekly SSB nets on 160m. We
encourage DX, local, portable, mobile, and especially newly licensed
and first-timers on the band to call in. The 160m net is held on Monday
nights from 9 p.m. The 80m net continues on Thursday nights from 9 p.m.
also.

Keith's report closes with an update for the IRTS AGM 2023. The Shannon
Basin Radio Club will host the 2023 IRTS AGM Weekend on Saturday, the
29th of April, and Sunday, the 30th of April next year. The venue is
the Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe, Co. Galway. The club is busy
working on the arrangements; gala dinner tickets are available for
purchase and tables are available for the radio rally on the Sunday.
Further information is available at www.sbrc.ie/agmweekend
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December YOTA

IRTS Youth Officer Niall, Ei6HIB reminds all listeners that December
YOTA month is almost upon us! This is a busy time of year especially
for young ham radio operators across the world. This December Ei0YOTA
and many other YOTA teams will light up the bands in the interests of
giving youngsters a taste of our great hobby. A full list of
participating stations can be found on the website events.ham-yota.com
. The entire month of December several youngsters will become active
with YOTA as the call-sign suffix. The idea for this is to show the
amateur radio hobby to youth and to encourage youngsters to be active
on the ham radio waves. If you wish to activate the Ei0YOTA call-sign,
maybe with a scout troop or with kids and grand kids, it is a great way
to help promote the hobby to the next generation of DXers, contesters
and rag-chewers! Email Niall, Ei6HIB, at yota /at/ irts.ie and a
groupchat will be setup to help scheduling.
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CWops Award

CWops is pleased to announce that it is now accepting nominations for
the prestigious 13th CWops Award for CW Art Development for 2023. The
purpose of the award is to honour individuals, groups or organisations
that have made the greatest contribution to the art or practice of
Morse code radio communications. Candidates for the award may be
authors of publications related to CW, CW recruiters, mentors, trainers
and instructors, public advocates, activities organisers, designers and
inventors who advance the art or practice of CW, and other contributors
to the CW art or practice. The award is not limited to hams or their
organisations. Nominations can be made by anyone, not just CWops
members. The list of awardees will be presented at Dayton Hamvention
2023.
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HF Activities

CW contesters will get ready for the last major contest for this year,
the CQ Worldwide DX CW Contest runs for 24 hours from 00:00 UTC on
Saturday. Using CW only on the 160 to 10m bands, where contesting is
permitted, the exchange is signal report and CQ Zone.

TL8AA was heard on 60m and other bands throughout Saturday. Eight
Italian hams have troubles staying on air in the Central African
Republic, citing problems sourcing enough fuel for their diesel
guzzling 30 KW generator. The country is undergoing a severe shortage
of fuel. Recents spots show the dxpedition using the call-sign TL8AA
for CW, SSB and RTTY. Spots for FT8 show the call-sign TL8ZZ. They are
active on all bands from 160 to 6m. QSL is via I2YSB.
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IARU-MS

Every month the IARU Monitoring System publishes an extensive
newsletter. It contains, among other things, detailed information about
intruders on the amateur bands. The October IARU-MS newsletter provides
an overview of the most disruptive, unwanted transmissions on our
bands: the 'over the horizon' radars. In addition to the Russian
Contayner OTH radar, there were many transmissions from the Iranian OTH
radar in the 10m band on 28860 occasionally sweeping the entire
10-meter band. Chinese OTH radars were received on 40, 20 and 15
meters. The British OTHR at the R.A.F Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus was
received mostly on 15m, but also on 17 and 10m. The full report is
available at www.iaru-r1.org
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The Propagation Horoscope

Solar Cycle 25 is expected to peak around July 2025, about 32 months
from now. Looking at current numbers and predictions, it's worth taking
into account reports from Solar Cycle 19, around 1958, when intense
solar radiation produced long lasting, worldwide openings on 10m. Solar
Cycle 19 had by far the highest sunspot number on record. HF
propagation improves at higher frequencies when X-rays from the Sun are
more intense, and this is tied to the sunspot numbers, together with
the Sun's radiation, measured at 28 GHz. This radiation charges the
ionosphere, increasing density.

The Australian Space Weather Forecast Centre currently predicts that a
large mid-latitude coronal hole, helped by some glancing interaction of
recent CMEs, will cause geomagnetic disturbance, likely starting on
Monday morning. It's too early to predict if the expected G1 storm will
put a temporary halt to the excellent propagation conditions of late,
VK/ZL, Asia and Africa can be heard on all bands, the MUF quickly
climbs to above 30 MHz soon after sunrise. Greyline propagation to
VK/ZL works long and short path at around 8 to 9 o'clock in the
morning.

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.

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