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This Week's News

IRTS Radio News Bulletin Sunday May 31st, 2026
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News from the IRTS

The IRTS would like to warmly congratulate all newly licensed amateur
radio operators who recently passed the HAREC exam and look forward to
hearing your new callsigns on the air in the coming weeks. For IRTS
members with a shiny new callsign, please contact the IRTS Membership
Records Officer David Gardiner EI3IXB by email to memrecords /at/
irts.ie to advise him of your new callsign for membership records
purposes.

New licensees are a vital part of keeping local clubs and repeaters
active, you can find a local club on irts.ie/clubs, and repeaters near
you at irts.ie/repeaters which also offers ready-made files that can be
used directly in many radio programming applications.

You are also encouraged to create online operator profiles on popular
sites such as qrz.com, qrzcq.com, and hamqth.com. These profiles help
other operators learn more about you and your new station.
Complementary to your IRTS membership, you benefit from a public
liability insurance that covers parks on the air and summits on the air
activities in Ireland, UK, and across the EU.

Candidates who wish to re-sit the HAREC exam are encouraged to check
irts.ie regularly for the upcoming exam dates.
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May 31st Deadline for the Summer Edition of Echo Ireland

The deadline for the summer edition of Echo Ireland is today, May 31st.
If any member or club has news or reports for inclusion, please forward
these to echoireland /at/ irts.ie
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HF Newsreaders Required

HF newsreaders are required to join our current panel of newsreaders
for the weekly Sunday morning IRTS news bulletins on HF - especially
for the 80m band. There is very little involved in reading a bulletin
and no experience is necessary. If any licensed IRTS member feels like
that they would be interested in becoming part of the IRTS newsreaders
panel or if you require more information, please get in touch with the
IRTS news editor, Keith EI5IN via email to newsteam /at/ irts.ie
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Tipperary Amateur Radio Group

The next meeting of the Tipperary Amateur Radio Group will be held at
Raheen House Hotel, Clonmel, Co Tipperary on Wednesday the 3rd of June
2026 at 8 p.m. The Eircode for this venue is E91 AC82. The meeting is
open to all, and short-wave listeners are very welcome to attend also.
For more information about Tipperary Amateur Radio Group, you can send
an email to ei7trg /at/ gmail.com
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Parks on the Air Rover Attempt by TOG Hackerspace

TOG Hackerspace is very excited to be teaming up with their friends in
South Dublin Radio Club for their first Parks on the Air Rover attempt.
Today, the June Bank Holiday Sunday, they will be all over Dublin
activating parks as EI0TOG. You are welcome to join them at one of the
parks or catch them on the air. More details can be found at
tog.ie/radio
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Dublin Maker Returns This August

A major event for tech enthusiasts, tinkerers, and builders returns
late this summer. The Dublin Maker festival has been confirmed for
Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd of August, taking place at
Leopardstown Racecourse. Dublin Maker stands as one of Ireland's most
vibrant showcases of invention, engineering, craft, and curiosity.
Firmly established as a flagship celebration of the maker movement, the
event functions as a hands-on, family-friendly festival where ideas are
not just displayed, but actively demonstrated, built, and shared. At
its heart, the festival is a "show and tell" for all ages. This creates
a unique space where engineers, hobbyists, artists, educators, and
electronics tinkerers come together to share how things work, how they
are made, and how creative ideas become reality.

Amateur radio clubs and technical communities play a central role in
the festival, providing a fantastic public platform to showcase the
technical side of the hobby, from homebrew equipment to live field
operations. TOG Hackerspace and the South Dublin Radio Club will be
returning to the event. Having both participated in the festival for
many years, they are an important and highly popular part of the
weekend's showcase. Further details, including call-for-makers
information and club registration, can be found on dublinmaker.ie which
is the official Dublin Maker website.
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Propagation Update

On the HF bands, solar activity is changeable with the solar flux index
on a downward trend, and the HF bands are heavily disrupted. The NOAA
Space Weather Prediction Center noted a risk of daytime radio blackouts
from minor flares, while closer to home, the Magnetometer Network of
Ireland issued an alert after recording a major storm with a local
K-index of 6 at Dunsink. This combination is causing high noise floors
and heavy signal absorption, particularly on northern routes. The HF
bands will remain somewhat volatile early this week as the ionosphere
recovers, leaving the lower frequencies as the most reliable choice for
domestic paths.

In contrast, frequencies above 30 MHz are experiencing excellent
late-spring openings due to the Sporadic-E season. Intense ionisation
has opened short-skip paths across Europe on both the 8-metre and
6-metre bands. On 8 metres, strong FT8 signals have been logged from
Ireland into continental Europe over distances approaching 1,500
kilometres, while the 6-metre band remains wide open. Operators should
monitor 8 and 6 metres closely, as these openings can appear rapidly
throughout the day and evening. Finally, the Hepburn tropospheric
forecast at dxinfocentre.com shows a stable, standard atmospheric
profile for the early part of the week. No major long-distance tropo
openings are expected immediately, but operators should check local
beacons for minor enhancements between Ireland and the UK during the
cooler morning and evening hours.
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VHF/Microwave News

An exciting Amateur Radio on the International Space Station school
contact is scheduled for next week. Two schools in France will take
part in a joint contact on Friday, June 5th, with the space station
pass locked in for 09:26 UTC. Listeners across Ireland and Europe can
monitor 145.800 MHz FM to hear the astronaut's live responses to the
students. The space station will be using the callsign OR4ISS for this
event, and the latest operational status of the ship's transceivers can
be checked at ariss.org.
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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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