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IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 17July2022
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South Dublin Radio Club

The South Dublin Radio Club will be at the "Dublin Maker" festival,
Merrion Square, Dublin on Saturday the 23rd of July. "Dublin Maker" is
a free-to-attend, family-friendly, community-run event that celebrates
the inventiveness, creativity, and resourcefulness of the "Maker"
movement. It is a place where people show what they are making and
share what they are learning. There will be 100 Makers at the event
ranging from tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers,
hobbyists, engineers, artists, science clubs, students, authors, and
commercial exhibitors. They are of all ages and backgrounds, coming
from all over Ireland and beyond. The "Dublin Maker" mission is to
entertain, inform and connect the Makers of Ireland while inspiring the
next generation of Ireland's Makers and inventors. In keeping with the
Maker ethos, South Dublin Radio Club will demonstrate the knowledge and
skills that can be learned through amateur radio by showcasing various
projects and equipment. The exhibit will feature HF and VHF stations
operating for the duration of the festival, demonstrating all modes of
communication. This will include a Digital Mobile Radio (DMR),
home-built and based on a Raspberry Pi. There will be a TinyGS Ground
Station. TinyGS is an open network of Ground Stations distributed
around the world to receive and operate LoRa satellites, weather
probes, and other flying objects. To give visitors a chance to give
Morse a go South Dublin Radio Club will bring Morse keys and
oscillators. A Software Defined Radio "waterfall" will be running on a
screen, to be used as a visual aid to explain Radio communications to
visitors. And there will be various projects made by club members, from
simple AM receivers to Arduino and Raspberry-Pi based projects, and
more!

"Dublin Maker" takes place in a carnival atmosphere and is for all
ages. There will be live music, food stalls, and toilet facilities on
site. Entry is free. "Dublin Maker" runs from 10am to 6pm, Saturday the
23rd of July, Merrion Square, Dublin City. You can find more
information about the festival online at www.dublinmaker.ie or by
following the festival on Twitter /at/ DublinMaker. Alternatively, you
can find more information on South Dublin Radio Club's involvement by
visiting the club website www.southdublinradioclub.ie or you can keep
tabs on the club's experience at Dublin Maker via Twitter /at/
SDRadioClub
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IARUMS June Newsletter

The latest report of the IARU Spectrum Monitoring volunteers can now be
downloaded from the www.iaru-r1.org web-site. An Archive of the latest
and previous reports can be found under the "Spectrum" section. A new
type of intruding wide-band signal on 15m is shown in screenshots, but
also detailing 40m and 20m intrusions, occurring since February. These
observations are joining the growing list of long-standing intrusions
affecting European Hams, originating from military activities mainly in
Russia, Iran and the UK Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus. Beacons
attached to drift-nets have made a unwelcome come-back in the 10m band,
and so have a plethora of pirate broadcasters operating on 40m. It is
important to document these intrusions, if there is to be any hope of
making a successful case for protecting our allocations. The IRTS
officer responsible for spectrum monitoring is Michael, Ei3GYB. He is a
regular contributor to the IARUMS Newsletter.
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IARU HF Championship

Apart from a temporary issue with log submission on the ARRL web-site
at the conclusion of last weekend's contest, the IARU HF Championship
turned out to be a success in terms of increased participation and
number of submitted logs. Stations from Ireland included EI2HIB, EI3LC,
EI5KO, EI6IKB, EI6JK, and of course EI0HQ. The IRTS headquarter
call-sign was activated by Enda EI2II, Stefan EI4KU, Megan EI5LA,
Christine EI5LC, Pat EI6GMB, Rafal EI6LA, Roger EI8KN, and Pat EI9HX.
The EI0HQ crew coordinated their activities via a chat-channel on our
irts.groups.io web-site. Additionally, Megan and Rafal synchronised
logs over the internet, effectively writing to one log from two
locations. This turned out to be so successful that this method will be
adopted for future operations. As can be seen on LOTW the IRTS crew
logged over 37 ITU zones during 3300 QSOs, achieving a raw score of
around 2.3 million points. The well organized Polish, German and French
headquarter stations put in a strong performance, there is no doubt
that one of them will come out top in IARU Region-1. Band conditions
were challenging, owing to a strong flare just before the weekend
coinciding with the arrival of a CME, making the lower frequencies
barely usable, giving reasonable short to medium skip on 40m, good
conditions on 20m, and a fickle 15m band. The various bands and modes
were rotated between the operators. Roger, EI8KN stuck to 10m
throughout the contest, producing an outstanding result on his
favourite HF band.
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Contests

The results of the recent IRTS CW Field Day contest are now available
on the IRTS website. Congratulations to the Avondu Radio Club, EI1E/P,
this year's leading station in the open section, and to Joe Ryan,
EI7GY/P, this year's leading station in the restricted 6 Hour section.
No entry was submitted for the 24 hour restricted section. Thanks to
those who submitted their station log for the contest. Going forward,
if club stations participating in IRTS contests included a list of
station operators with their log submission it would be much
appreciated.

In the run-up to the YOTA Summer Camp in Croatia in August, the
IARU-Region 1 Youth Working Group, cooperating with the Hungarian
Amateur Radio Society MRASZ will host the second of three of this
year's YOTA contests. The aim is to increase youngsters activity on the
air, to strengthen the reputation of the YOTA program, and as a
demonstration of support for youngsters across the world. This HF
contest will take place on the 23rd of July, from 10:00 to 21:59 UTC.
The modes are CW and SSB on 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m, 10m. The log-exchange
for single operators is RST and their age on the 1st of January, while
multi-ops exchange RST and their average age.

To promote contacts between stations in IOTA island groups and the rest
of the world, and to encourage expeditions to IOTA islands, the RSGB
organizes the annual "Islands On The Air" contest taking place over the
last weekend of July. Expect much activity on 3.5, 7, 14, 21 and 28
MHz. The IRTS newsteam is eager to hear about planned activations of
Irish off-shore islands by local and visiting teams.

The International CW Council sponsors the Medium Speed Test every
Monday and Tuesday to populate the bands using CW at a speed of 20-25
WPM. The next one hour long contest takes place on the 18th and 19th
from 03:00 to 04:00 Zulu. The ICWC website is on
www.internationalcwcouncil .org .

The Adventure Radio Society's "Flight of the Bumblebees" has an unusual
set of rules for portable QRP operations. It takes place on the last
Sunday of July from 17:00 to 21:00 Zulu. This annual four-hour,
five-watt maximum power CW contest around standard QRP frequencies on
40, 20, 15 and 10 meter bands is looking for "Bumblebees". These are
defined as participants who operate portable from field locations. To
qualify, one must travel to the operating site principally under one's
own power by walking, biking or boating. Participants need to apply for
a "Bumblebee" number to qualify as an operator in the contest.
Home-based stations may also participate. Check out the 2022 rules at
arsqrp.blogspot.com

The SAC Contest Committee has unanimously decided to cancel both legs
of this year's Scandinavian Activity Contest, originally due to take
place in September and October.
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Activations

M�rket Island, also known as M�rket Reef, is a tiny rocky island,
located west of the Aland Island group at the southern end of the Gulf
of Bothnia between Sweden and Finland. A safe landing is only possible
during calm weather. OJ0DX will be on the air fom M�rket Island, IOTA
EU-053 from the start of next week until the 1st of August on 80 to 6m.
QSL via DL3DXX, ClubLog OQRS.

G4BVY, G4CLA, GD4XUM and G4PVM are the D4Z Team activating Sao Vicente
Island, Capo Verde, IOTA AF-086 until the RSGB IOTA Contest at the end
of the month. QSL direct via HB9DUR, or via bureau to IK2NCJ.

The Argentine Antarctic Stations at San Martin, IOTA AN-016, Belgrano
2, IOTA AN-016, and Marambio, IOTA AN-013, will be on-air on 14.190MHz
every Saturday in July between 13:00 and 18:00 UTC. The call-signs are
LU1ZD, LU1ZG and LU4ZS respectively. QSL for all three stations via
LU4DXU.
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The Propagation Horoscope

Transmissions from the beacon DK�WCY, normally transmitting solar and
geomagnetic data on 3579 kHz and 10144 kHz, will be paused for a while,
the transmissions on 5195 kHz may continue for now. The reason given by
DARC is the sale of the property where the beacons are stationed. Work
is underway to install the equipment and antennas at the QTH of DL9LBA.
The beacons are an important source of up-to-date data about solar
activity, broadcasting CW, RTTY and PSK31 signals. Until regular
services resume the data sets are available online on the website of
the aurora beacon at www.dk0wcy.de, now in its 20th year of operation.

22 years ago, on the 14th of July, at 10:03 to 10:43 UTC, a strong
X5.7-class solar flare on the earth-facing side of the Sun sent
shockwaves all the way to the edge of the solar system. The "Bastille
Day Event" flare created an earth-directed halo of a CME which arrived
the next day, bathing satellites in radiation and penetrating into the
atmosphere to such depth that sensors on the surface registered a rare
"Ground-Level Event". The resulting geomagnetic storm around the 15th
and 16h of July 2000 resulted in a kP index of above 9, only matched by
the Halloween solar storms of 2003. This triggered auroras reaching the
lower latitudes and turning the sky red. Radio blackouts affected all
frequencies, even RTE's long-wave transmitter disappeared into the
static. Six month later Voyager 2, and eight month later Voyager 1
registered the CME. At the edge of the solar system both spacecraft are
exposed to high levels of cosmic rays. The CME muted that radiation for
over three months before the return of normal cosmic-ray levels. Not
expecting a repeat of such an extreme event in the near future, as the
currently active regions of the Sun will rotate out of view on Monday,
there will be a low probability of strong flares, thus lowering the
solar wind speed from currently 450 km/s throughout the week. The
daytime MUF for 3000km distances will hover around the 15m band,
decreasing to 20m at night. Sporadic-E will continue to enhance
propagation on 12m and above favouring VHF and UHF operators who will
take advantage of the slow moving high pressure zone over western
Europe.

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 Thursday.

[C]
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