DMR net planned for Monday evenings in Ireland

In an effort to promote activity on digital radio in Ireland and to gauge the level of interest, a new weekly net is starting on Talk Group 2722 on Monday the 24th of Sept 2018.

Extract from the IRTS news...
DMR Net Monday, 24th of September : Steve, EI5DD is planning to hold a National DMR net on Monday the 24th of September at 8:30 pm sharp on the Ireland Calling Channel TG 2722. The purpose of this initiative is to determine how many operators are now active on air and to evaluate the approximate numbers for each county including those in Northern Ireland. Each county will be called in alphabetical order. To keep the activity swift and snappy, please give Callsign, Name, County, and conclude with No Traffic.

The Call-in should only take 15 minutes maximum and there will be plenty of time to hold a free for all QSO at the end of the call ins. If sufficient interest is shown, we may hold this net on a weekly basis.

Update : This ended after 3 weeks.

Irish results from the 2018 IOTA Contest

From the IRTS News...
IOTA Contest Results : Provisional results for the 2018 RSGB IOTA Contest have been announced. There were 2,200 entries for this contest, which took place at the end of July. East Cork Amateur Radio Group was the highest scoring station, with more than 3,700 QSOs. 23 EI and GI stations submitted logs, and their results can be seen at www.irts.ie/results which also includes a link to the complete results for all stations.

Non-DXpedition, High Power
1 EI7M EU115 Ireland 3,757 543 15,681,840

Single-Operator
Non-DXpedition, CW, Assisted, 12-hours, High Power
1 EI5KF EU115 Ireland 1,100 123 884,985

Results of the HF SSB Field Day... Sept 2018

From the IRTS News....
Contest Results : Results of SSB Field Day, which took place over the weekend of 1st and 2nd September 2018, have been published. 5 EI stations submitted logs. Band conditions were well down on previous years, with no propagation on the higher bands, so most activity was on 40 metres and 80 metres. The Contest Results page www.irts.ie/results has the details.

Award Call Sign / Name Valid

QSOs QSO Points Multipliers Total

Open Section

EI1E/P, Avondhu Radio Club 667 2,259 76 171,684

EI7T/P, Tipperary Amateur Radio Group 393 1,414 62 87,668

Restricted Section / 6 hours

EI3Z/P, Shannon Basin Radio Club 116 397 35 13,895

EI7GY/P, Joe Ryan 93 357 26 9,282

EI3CTB/P, Justin Behan 12 46 4 184

Sign of the times as US radio retailer closes...

There was a news item recently about how a store named Radio City which sells radio equipment was closing due to the owners retiring. Apparently, there is no-one interested in taking it over as a going concern.

This news item with quote appeared in the local media about it...

"Like many technologies from an earlier era, ham radio is largely made up of older men trying to come up with ways to make it appealing to a younger demographic that isn’t that interested."

https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2018/09/as-ham-radio-fades-last-mn-store-closes/

IARU Monitoring System issues August 2018 Newsletter

The August 2018 Newsletter of the IARU Monitoring System for Region 1 has just been released and it again shows the various intrusions into the radio amateur bands.

The newsletter reports that long-time broadcasters from the Horn of Africa have now moved from the 40-metre band although there are signs of increased military traffic on 7 and 14 MHz from Russia and China.

The contributor for the IRTS is Michael EI3GYB and he reports many instances of fishermen heard on the 80-metre amateur band.

The full newsletter can be seen here... http://www.iarums-r1.org/iarums/news2018/news1808.pdf

Russia proposes to use DRM on 65.9-74.0 MHz

On the 11th of September 2018, it was reported that the Russian Federation proposes to use the digital DRM+ standard for broadcasting on the  the radio frequency bands 65.9-74 MHz and 87.5-108 MHz.

While this move may not have much of an issue here in Ireland, it has the potential of being a major source of interference to radio amateurs using the 4 metre band (70 MHz) in central and eastern Europe. As 'Secondary Users' of this part of the spectrum, radio amateurs have no choice but to live with any interference, especially during the Summer Sporadic-E season.

The 65.9 MHz to 74 MHz spectrum has been used up to now for analogue FM transmissions in Russia and some adjacent countries. Over the last 20 years, the general trend has been to close these low band VHF transmitters and move them instead to the usual 88 to 108 MHz band. It seemed as if the 65.9 to 74 MHz band might eventually close but this new digital DRM allocation will see it being put to a new use.

This highlights the fact that while extensive parts of the low band VHF spectrum were allocated to the Amateur Radio Service in Ireland, that is very unlikely to happen elsewhere in Europe.

From Google Translate...

EI8JK works Japan on 70cms Moonbounce for an EI first

Working Japan on any band from Ireland is pretty good but what about doing it on 432 MHz? That's exactly what Tony EI8JK did on Monday the 10th of September 2018 when he worked Toshia JA6AHB by bouncing 70 cms signals off the moon!

The pair have been trying to make the contact for several weeks with Tony making small incremental improvements to his system to squeeze out every fraction of a dB. In the end, they managed to complete the contact using the JT65 mode on Monday morning during a 2-hour window to make it an EI-JA first on the UHF band.

In terms of equipment, JA6AHB was using 500 watts into a 7 metre dish while Tony was using 4 x 21 element yagis with a medium powered amplifier. His antenna system is shown below.

Tony lives on the scenic Sheeps Head peninsula in West Cork and no doubt the remote location with low noise background really helps on the VHF and UHF bands. With his current set-up and more improvements on the way, he hopes to work many more stations off the moon on 432 MHz.

48 hours on 14 MHz WSPR...

I tried out WSPR on 14 MHz last Saturday in an effort to hear a high altitude balloon in Argentina which was supposed to use it during a flight. I had no luck hearing the beacon but I left the radio on for 48 hours anyway to see what could be heard.

As can be seen, lots of signals were heard although if I have to be honest, I didn't find it that interesting. It's really no big deal to get worldwide signals on 20m.

What I did find interesting though was those stations using really low power, especially SM0FXK with 1 milliwatt!

These are the stations using 100mW or less.

FT8 tests on 144 MHz with limited success

After reading a post on the blog of Roger G3XBM about the possibilities of FT8 on 144 MHz, I tried it out for myself. The results for me on receive on a flat band however were mediocre at best...

Like any experiment, you always learn something even if the results are poor.

The key points for me are...

1) Poor antenna..... Using an indoor Slim-Jim half wave vertical antenna in the attic doesn't cut it for weak signals on 144 MHz. It might be fine in the SE of the UK, the low countries or Germany but not here in Ireland.

2) Too far west..... I estimate the bulk of the FT8 stations on 144 MHz are at least 400 kms to the east of me. Roger had a lot more stations closer to him even from the continent.

3) Fewer planes..... With a 15 second transmission time, aircraft scatter probably plays a big part on the number of FT8 signals heard on 144 MHz. Here on the south coast of Ireland, most of the aircraft traffic is Trans-Atlantic going east-west. There would be a much higher number of planes criss-crossing over the south east of the UK with many at lower altitudes.

The results confirm what I would have kind of guessed anyway. FT8 is good but it's not that good. To operate 2m FT8 from here, I would need an external horizontal Yagi.

Article on Finbarr EI0CF operating on 501 KHz

Nice article by VE7SL on the 630m adventures of Finbarr EI0CF in Donegal on 501 KHz.

Link here... http://ve7sl.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-630m-portable-adventures-of-ei.html

Frequency for new Irish beacon on 40 MHz announced...

In the September 2018 issue of Echo Ireland which is sent out to members of the IRTS, it was announced that the proposed frequency for the new Irish beacon on the 8 metre band will be 40.013 MHz.

The only amateur beacon currently on the band is OZ7IGY from Denmark on 40.071 MHz. The one on 40.050 MHz from central England seems to be off the air and was last spotted several years back.

The proposed frequency for the Irish beacon on 60 MHz will be 60.013 MHz.

GB3NGI heard on 144 MHz with an indoor antenna...

During the EI 2m activity period on Tuesday evening, I had a tune around the beacon band and used the PI4 software to see if I could see any faint signals in the waterfall. To my suprise, I could faintly see and hear GB3NGI which was 385kms away...

Considering I was just using a vertical Slim Jim in the attic of the house, I really wasn't expecting to hear anything.

I looked up the beacon website https://www.qsl.net/gb3ngi/ and found that the signals were alternating between CW and JT65b. As I had never used JT65b before, I had some trouble getting the WSJT-X programme to decode the signals.

After doing a bit of research, I changed some settings on the programme... Settings > General > Enable VHF/UHF/Microwave features and then used the settings in the graphic above. It now works ok and I can see the decoded signals.

0840 -25  1.4 1261 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f
0842 -26  1.4 1260 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f
0854 -26  1.3 1260 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f
0856 -24  1.3 1260 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f
0858 -23  1.3 1260 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f
0900 -23  1.3 1260 #* GB3NGI IO65VB          f

Thanks to G0MJI and the screenshots on his website which make things a lot clearer.

Notice : IRTS 2m/70cms Counties Contest... Sun 9th Sept 2018

The IRTS 70cms and 2 metres Counties Contests, in which EI and GI counties are multipliers, take place on Sunday next, 9th September 2018. The 70cms event is at 1.00pm local time, for one hour, and this is followed by the 2 metres contest from 2.00pm to 4.00pm local time. There are separate sections in these contest for portable and fixed stations, low power and high power, as well as an FM Only section for single ops and an SWL section. The portable sections are for field-day type operations, so those entering one of the portable sections should be aware of the requirements for portable section entries in the contest rules.

See www.irts.ie/ contests for more details, which include the frequencies for these contests and the 'QSY Rule' that applies to FM QSOs.

ICQ Podcast covers Zello link to Southern Ireland Repeater Network

The ICQ podcast is one of the most popular amateur related podcasts from the UK and is usually released once a fortnight.

In this episode released on the 2nd of Sept 2018, they discussed the recent linking of the online Zello network to the Southern Ireland repeater network.

On the video below, fast forward to about 21:35 for the SIRN item and it lasts until about 29:00.



Links...
1) The ICQ podcast show notes can be seen HERE
2) Previous post on this blog about the linking of Zello to the Southern Ireland Repeater Network HERE

Remote controls for garage doors on 40 MHz...

Another post about 40 MHz :o)

The ISM (Industrial, Scientific, Medical) band goes from 40.660 to 40.700 MHz and is intended for use by a range of very low power devices. I came across some information recently about a garage door remote control system which operates in the band.

40.66 MHz 40.7 MHz B 40.68 MHz Worldwide
HÖRMANN HSM4 40 MHZ

40.685 MHz

Hormann Garador HSM4 Garage Door Remote Control Keyfob Transmitter - 40.685MHz - Grey Buttons

It just goes to show that the band is not completely empty and radio amateurs should probably avoid using the ISM band especially in built up areas.

Italian Paging System at 40 MHz...

There was a news item on the Southgate ARC website today about a new DAPNET POCSAG Pager Gateway being licensed in the UK.

After reading up a bit on it, I found a website which lists the frequency allocations for commerrcial paging devices and it turns out that there is one in Italy at 40 MHz.

As always, I try to keep a record of any 40 MHz information here on the blog for references purposes.

Copied text below......"In Italy the 26.225-26.935 MHz band (AM/FM, odd frequency steps) and 40.0125-40.0875 MHz (in 25 kHz steps) may be used for local pagers. These frequencies are often used for on-site hospital paging systems, including voice paging."

Going off the information above, the four Italian frequencies are...
40.0125 MHz
40.0375 MHz
40.0625 MHz
40.0875 MHz

As can be seen from the proposed 8 metre band plan from the IRTS, these pagers are in the beacon band.

Considering that pagers are only intended to receive local signals, it's unlikely that they are susceptible to interference from Sporadic-E type signals. However, those frequencies are probably best avoided for beacons in Ireland or elsewhere.

Low Band VHF Pagers... I have included a list of frequencies between 30 and 50 MHz which are used for paging systems below...

New Facebook page for the EI7GL blog...

Just to make it a bit easier for people to follow the posts on the blog and perhaps to attract a few more readers, I have set up a new page on Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/EI7GL-Amateur-Radio-1646048415540800/

One of the main targets of this blog is to promote more activity on the amateur bands so hopefully it might noticed by some of guys there on Facebook.

Videos from the 2018 Amateur Radio Show in Tokyo..

See below the video clips showing the latest radios from Japan...

ICOM booth...

Applications for the Irish Radio Amateur Licence Examination now open

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society have announced that the next Amateur Station Licence Examination will be held on Thursday 15th November 2018 in the ComReg offices in Dublin and at other centres if warranted by the numbers. The closing date for applications to sit this examination is Thursday 1st November 2018.

Interested individuals can find more information on the IRTS website... https://www.irts.ie/cgi/st.cgi?applying

Zello Network Radio connection to the Southern Ireland Repeater Network

There has been a lot of interest of late in 'Network Radio' and the most popular app for this is probably Zello. (See previous post)

In the last few days, the Southern Ireland Repeater Network has been connected to the Zello network. In effect, this allows people to access the repeater network over the internet.

From my understanding of it, anyone can listen to the SIRN on Zello but only licenced radio amateurs are allowed to gain access.

Here is some info from one of the repeater group moderators...

Hi all, I’m delighted to announce that the Southern Ireland Repeater Network now has a Zello gateway. This is a very comprehensive network which covers most of the country with VHF, UHF, 4m, and also has a DMR link.

Please visit our pages for all the info and we welcome all licensed amateurs and listeners.

The same moderator structure as used in network radio is in place just add as a friend and you will be trusted as a friend and have full access to most of EI on RF! As these are RF amateur repeaters it will be obviously for licensed holders only though non licensed operators can listen.

I believe this will be one of the first Repeater network gateways to be accessed through the Zello network and we’re very excited to be able to provide this facility which will enhance more activity.
Thank you very much de John EI2HW.

https://sirnrepeaters.blogspot.ie/

https://zello.com/channels/k/e8Tb1

***
SIRN Activity... The Southern Ireland Repeater Network covers roughly half the island of Ireland and consists of two repeaters on 2m and five on 70cms. It is also connected to the DMR network on TG27240.

The repeater network can be pretty quiet considering the number of repeaters on the network. The busiest period is usually on Tuesday evenings when the IRTS news is read out at 9:30pm local time.

The EI activity evenings on 2m and 70cms are on the first two Tuesdays of every month and it's worth having a listen then as well.

If you are calling in via Zello then be sure to give your callsign and call more than once if you get no answer at first. A number of people may well be monitoring or scanning and may not hear you first time around.

Zello to Zello.... Just remember that if you do access the network via Zello then you are tying up a whole RF repeater network. If the person you are talking to is also on Zello then that conversation can be held on Zello instead.

Remember that it is not just another Zello channel, it's a means of accessing a repeater network in Ireland from the Zello network.

Getting on Zello.... It's very easy to get started on Zello. If you have a smartphone or tablet then just download the app for free and then set up a Zello account. To get on the Southern Ireland Repeater Network, just go to the this page.. https://zello.com/channels/k/e8Tb1 or scan the QR code that is shown there.

SIRN Coverage... A map showing the RF coverage of the Southern Ireland Repeater Network can be seen below...