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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday 07 September 2022
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Club News

Galway Radio Experimenters Club

The September meeting of the Galway Radio Experimenters Club (EI4GRC)
will take place next Monday night, the 5th of September at 8.00 p.m.
sharp in 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.

South Eastern Amateur Radio Group

With our ever-increasing events calendar the South Eastern Amateur
Radio Group EI2WRC are pleased to announce the appointment of Edwin Van
Mierlo (EI2HEB) as the Events Coordinator of the group. Edwin's first
job will be the coordination of the Railways On The Air event which
takes place over the weekend of the 24th and 25th of September. As in
previous years the group will be active from The Waterford & Suir
Valley Railway station in Kilmeaden, Co. Waterford. WSVR is a community
heritage project. The project has enabled the magic of rails golden age
to be brought to life in Kilmeaden. A heritage narrow-gauge railway
runs along 17 kilometres of the abandoned Waterford to Dungarvan line.
The South Eastern Amateur Radio Group would like to thank the manager
Maria Kyte and all the staff of The Waterford & Suir Valley Railway for
all their help and allowing us access to do this event again this year.
For more information about the WSVR please see www.wsvrailway.ie . 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.
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UK Amateur Radio License

Recent changes to the Amateur Radio Licence, which require radio
amateurs to demonstrate compliance with Ofcom guidelines for minimising
the exposure of the general public to electromagnetic fields (EMF) from
their station, have made necessary urgent changes to the examination
syllabus. Since the 1st of September examinations include questions on
the new EMF-related material at all levels. See www.rsgb.org for
details.

For interested parties, the Strangford High Frequency Enthusiasts Group
are hosting a new Full UK licence distance learning program starting on
the 12th of September via Google Meet. Places are still available and
start at 8pm each Monday evening. The course lasts fifteen weeks. Full
support is also available via email and the material is also presented
via 140 useful videos and documentation. All services are completely
free and there are no minimum entry requirements, just enthusiasm.
GI0VKP /at/ gmail.com

Other sources for help towards a UK license are projects like the
online-based Ham Radio Network. On Monday they have an evening with Ian
Keyser (G3ROO), talking about antenna concepts. Their website is
www.hrn.world .

The Online Radio Club has a virtual radio club night at 7:30 pm every
Thursday via Zoom. It is suitable for all radio enthusiasts regardless
of individual skill level. They are at www.onlineradioclub.org
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Contests

Congratulations to the Team of EI100C. They won this year's CQ WPX SSB
contest, coming first in a field of well over 6000 entrants. This
prestigious contest organised by the World Wide Radio Operators
Foundation. EI100C operated from EI7M in Cork, the successful team was
EI3JE, EI3JZ, EI3KD, EI4BZ, EI4HQ, EI5GSB, EI5LA, EI6LA, EI7IG, EI8IR
and ON4EI.

For next weekend's big event the German Amateur Radio Club (DARC)
invites radio amateurs world-wide to participate in the annual Worked
All Europe DX Contest. Many leading contesters claim the WAEDC to be
the most challenging contest of the year. Only intercontinental QSOs
between DX and Europe are counted. A unique feature is the QTC traffic.
The DX stations transfer real telegrams containing data of previously
logged QSOs, earning additional points. Multipliers are counted per
band and on the low bands they count more than on the high bands,
leading to significant activity on 40m and 80m. According to
IARU-Region1 rules no contest operation is allowed outside the
contest-preferred segments. No contest operation on 3650 to 3700 kHz,
7040 to 7060 and 7100 to 7130 kHz, 14100 to 14125 and 14300 to 14350
kHz.

The UK and Ireland Contest Club was formed in 2014 to promote the
development of HF contesting in the UK and Ireland and to encourage
newcomers into HF contesting. And it has lived up to that motto, this
friendly and courteous event has become a fixture on the European
contest calender. The UKEICC is run by a small but enthusiastic group
of keen British and Irish contesters. The club call-signs G5GEI and
EI5G will be active as bonus stations in the upcoming UK EI Contest
Club 80m contest, taking place on Wednesday from 20:00 to 21:00 UTC.
Using SSB only the exchange is your 6-character locator, The log is
uploaded until 22:00 UTC, and the results are known shortly after. See
www.ukeicc.com for details.
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Hamradio in Space

OMOTENASHI, a project of the JAXA Ham Radio Club, is a 6-Unit CubeSat
with a mass of around 14 kg hitching a ride on the Moon rocket which
hopefully launches at the third attempt. But once it does amateur radio
may soon have a presence on the Moon. OMOTENASHI consists of three
modules: an orbiting module, a retro motor module, and a surface probe.
During the moon transfer orbit, these modules are integrated. When
OMOTENASHI arrives at the moon, the surface probe will be separated and
conduct semi-hard landing. There will be UHF CM, PSK, PM and PSK31
beacons on 437.31 MHz with 1 watt RF each, on both the orbiting module
and the surface probe. For further details, please see:
www.isas.jaxa.jp

The launch of GENESIS-G and GENESIS-J with Firefly will take place next
Sunday. This will be the second attempt of Firefly to reach orbit after
the first attempt made in September 2021 failed two minutes into the
flight. These new GENESIS have a more powerful on-board computer than
their predecessors and updated software that allows FM voice repeater
functionality, AFSK/FSK non-regenerative repeater up to 2400 bps, FSK
regenerative repeater up to 50 bps, CW, digitised voice pre-recorded FM
and FSK telemetry at 50 bps. The correct re-transmission of AX25 / APRS
frames over FM up to 2400 bps has been verified in the laboratory. The
antenna deployment mechanism requires a well charged battery. The
satellites have been stored for several months, hopefully retaining
enough charge. GENESIS-G will be heard with the call-sign AM2SAT on
436.888 MHz and GENESIS-J will be heard as AM3SAT on 436.666 MHz. AMSAT
encourages all to try to receive and report the first transmissions
once the first keplerian elements are available.

Jeffrey Roe (EI7IRB) announces a Hackerspace workshop at TOG. He says:
Space is fun. Receiving data from space is even better. TinyGS is an
open community-run network of Ground Stations distributed around the
world to receive and operate LoRa satellites, weather probes and other
flying objects, using cheap and versatile modules, as seen on
www.tinygs.com This hands-on workshop will cover building, programming
and setting up your own TinyGS station. Participants will build their
very own quarter-wave ground plane antenna, and base station to take
home. All they have to do is plug the box into a USB charger. This
workshop is perfect if you want to get started building your first
antenna and get started in the world of radio. No amateur radio license
is required to operate the station, only if you wish to send data to
space. The event date is Saturday, the 17th September from 16:00 to
18:00, at a cost of 50 Euro plus Eventbrite fees, for a maximum of
eight participants. The location is the Tog Hackerspace, Unit 1B Motor
City, Kylemore Road, Dublin 12, eircode D12 KRW1. For more information
and booking details visit www.tog.ie
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The Propagation Horoscope

New research, published in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences,
shows that a "solar clock" based on the sun's magnetic field, rather
than the presence or absence of sunspots, can precisely describe and
predict many key changes throughout the solar cycle. Changes occur at
each one-fifth of a cycle, regardless of the exact length of a given
cycle. The sun's magnetic field changes direction each solar cycle,
with an overlap between consecutive cycles. When a previous cycle's
polar field has completely disappeared from the sun's surface it is
quickly followed by a dramatic rise in solar activity. At two-fifths of
a cycle, polar coronal holes re-form at the sun's poles. At
three-fifths of a cycle, the last X-flares occur. At four-fifths,
sunspots are typically at a minimum. The current cycle began in
December 2021, based on this research the last major flares are
predicted to occur in mid-2027.

As of now, a large coronal hole on the Sun's equator is earth-facing,
soon driving up the Kp index to 6 as the plasma hits the Earth later
today. This will bring some short-lived ionospheric enhancement,
followed by a drop of the MUF as the geomagnetic storm progresses. In
the absence of Sporadic-E and Tropo there are no favourable conditions
predicted for any of the high bands. The recent change in weather
brings with it a chance of lightning strikes, unplug and earth the
antennas before leaving the shack.

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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