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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday June 14th, 2026
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IRTS Seeking Volunteers for New Working Groups

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society is seeking volunteers from its
membership to assist with two newly established working groups. The
first working group has been set up to focus on the development and
enhancement of the official IRTS website. The second working group will
focus its efforts on IRTS constitutional reform. Any IRTS members who
are interested in lending their time and expertise to either of these
initiatives are asked to contact the society by emailing the IRTS
Honorary Secretary at irts_secretary /at/ irts.ie
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IRTS Hamfest 2026

IRTS Hamfest returns this year to the Mullingar Showgrounds on the 8th
and 9th of August. Entry will be completely free for everyone. Hamfest
welcomes your contribution to make it an even greater success, we would
love to hear from clubs, groups, and individual operators who are keen
to get involved. If you have a demo showcase, a workshop, or simply
something interesting to share with the wider community, please get in
touch via email to hamfest /at/ irts.ie
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Howth Martello Radio Group Actions for the International Museums Weekend

The Howth Martello Radio Group will be taking part in the International
Museums Weekend annual event on 20th and 21st of June. This will be the
25th year since the first IMW event took place in 2002. Many museums
from around the world will also be taking part and they will be hoping
to make radio contact with as many of them as possible. EI0MAR will be
operating from Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio in the
Martello tower, overlooking Howth Harbour. The museum is approached up
a steep narrow pathway opposite the Abbey Tavern on Abbey Street. The
Eircode is D13V099. Visitors are welcome to come along to see the
amateur radio station in operation, or even to operate it. The museum
is unique in that it has historic connections with the early
experimental days of telecommunications. It is open daily between 11
and 4 until the end of October. So, come along and join them during the
event!
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Tog Hackerspace and South Dublin Radio Club Head to Ireland s Eye

Tog Hackerspace and South Dublin Radio Club will be heading offshore
for another Parks on the Air activation on Sunday 21st June. Club
members will travel to Ireland's Eye, off Howth, to activate two POTA
references, IE-0266 Ireland's Eye Conservation Area and IE-0267
Rockabill Conservation Area. The east side of the island gives a nice
"2fer", with both references available from the same activation area.
The group plans to operate using the June special event callsign
EI0LGBT, signing EJ0LGBT from the island. Activity is expected on 20
metres, 40 metres, and 2 metres, conditions permitting. The group also
hopes to call into the South Dublin Radio Club net and the IRTS 2 metre
news if timing and coverage allow. This is an informal club outing
rather than a guided tour, and anyone joining should book their own
ferry and check the landing and mobility requirements in advance. More
details are available on the Tog website, and you can follow Tog's
radio activities at tog.ie/radio
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Update from Dundalk Amateur Radio Society

Dundalk Amateur Radio Society EI7DAR welcomed new IRTS President,
Jeffrey Roe EI7IRB, to its June monthly meeting at the club's
headquarters at Castletown Road, Dundalk. The president was welcomed to
Dundalk by EI7DAR Chairman, Anthony EI2KC, and President Sean EI4IP,
and was invited to speak about the IRTS's activities and plans for the
year ahead. The club reports they had one of the best-attended meetings
in a long time. Anthony also congratulated two of the club's regular
attendees, Piotr Tobik and Rob Strong, on passing the recent HAREC exam
and obtaining their EI calls. Piotr is now EI2KUB, and Rob is EI3KSB.
To celebrate this, and the attendance of the IRTS President, they had
cake and tea, and the chat was flowing. Dundalk club is planning to
hold a fox hunt in August and will be devoting its July meeting to
discussing that event and to making homebrew Yagi antennas for use in
hunting the fox. EI7DAR meets on the first Wednesday of the month at
Marconi House, Castletown Road, Dundalk, County Louth, a short drive
from exit 17 on the M1 motorway. Visitors and new members are always
welcome. The society has members from Louth, Meath, Cavan, Monaghan,
Armagh, and further afield, and is the most active radio club in the
northeast. For more information about Dundalk Amateur Radio Society,
visit their website at www.ei7dar.com
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VHF/Microwave News

Amateur radio operators moving to frequencies above 30MHz are
experiencing a remarkable period of late-spring propagation, with
substantial activity logged across the 8-metre, 6-metre, and 2-metre
bands. Intense Sporadic-E clouds over the Atlantic have opened up
highly unusual paths. Operators have successfully completed contacts
stretching from Europe all the way into North America, alongside
robust, short-skip contacts into continental Europe on the 8-metre and
6-metre bands. A very notable event of the week comes from the
troposphere. A shortwave listener in County Wexford, Angela O'Hanlon,
reported a spectacular reception event around 7:00 p.m. last Thursday.
While sitting in her car, her car radio picked up Med Radio
broadcasting from Morocco, with a signal clear enough to completely
override the local Irish station on that frequency. A path in excess of
two thousand kilometres from Morocco all the way to Wexford is right at
the extreme limit for weather-related VHF propagation.

For anyone with a new callsign and indeed established operators, a
night on the air to welcome new callsigns is planned for Wednesday June
24th on the 2m band. To make it as accessible as possible, the existing
repeaters on the 2-metre band are proposed to be used. Volunteers are
sought to act as net controllers on the repeaters to help those newly
licenced get some QSOs in their logs and gain some fun on-air
experience. If interested in helping out as a net controller, please
email vhf_manager /at/ irts.ie
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Worldwide Transmissions Scheduled for Alexanderson Day

The Alexander Grimeton Association has announced its transmission
schedule for this year s Alexanderson Day, taking place on Sunday, July
5th, 2026. This annual celebration marks the open house of the historic
Grimeton Radio Station in Sweden, a recognized UNESCO World Heritage
site. The association plans to carry out two separate transatlantic
broadcasts. Both transmissions will be sent on the very low frequency
of 17.2kHz using Morse code and the historic callsign SAQ. The first
scheduled broadcast will air at 09:00 UTC, with transmitter startup and
tuning beginning 30 minutes prior. The second broadcast is slated for
13:00 UTC, with the startup procedure similarly commencing at 12:30
UTC. Both scheduled operations will be accompanied by a live video
stream on the official Alexander SAQ Grimeton Association YouTube
channel.
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Items for Inclusion in Next Week's Radio News

That is the news for this week. Thanks to everyone for sending items
into the weekly IRTS radio news. They are very much appreciated and are
a great way to update the rest of the community about activities. If
you have any club events, activities, meetings, or other items of
interest, you are very welcome to email the radio news editor Keith
EI5IN via email to newsteam /at/ irts.ie with the details. The deadline
each week is midnight on Thursdays. Items intended for inclusion in
Echo Ireland, which is the IRTS quarterly journal, should be sent to
echoireland /at/ irts.ie

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