Kerry Amateur Radio Group repeater move

The Kerry Amateur Radio Group have announced another step in the group's ongoing 70cms repeater upgrade program, the repeater has moved to a new home.

Situated on Mullaghanish, Co. Kerry with a new callsign EI7MGR, the better coverage will ensure a greater availability of the repeater to the amateur radio community in Co. Kerry and beyond.

Reception reports have already been received from areas not covered from the previous location. The Kerry Amateur Radio Group look forward to receiving reception reports to  EI1KARG<at>gmail.com  and to working you on the air.

New VK6RIO beacon on 144.950 MHz to beam at South Africa

The Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Indian ocean two-way contacts on 144 MHz via Tropo Ducting are still the most challenging terrestrial frontiers on VHF.

Many attempts have been made but without success; a beautiful trophy is still waiting in Dublin to be awarded to the first successful attempt across the Atlantic.

Pieter ZR1AEE (now V51PJ) and Flavio PY2ZX ran a series of tests between Cape Town and Sao Paulo and received traces of each other, while a team comprising Andre ZS2ACP, Jim ZS2JF and Mike ZS2FM, in Port Elizabeth ran CW tests with Bill Hosie, VK6ACY (now ZS6CCY) at Perth, but did not receive any signals at all.

Now the Northern Corridor Radio Group at Perth are going to try and break this hoodoo by using the latest chirp modulation techniques on their VK6RIO beacon, and bridge Australia and South Africa on 144 MHz.

Keith Bainbridge, VK6RK, and spokesman for the Australian group says: "If we can get someone in the right location over there then perhaps we can help with some of the equipment". This project is real amateur radio science!

Kerry UHF repeater upgrade

The Kerry Amateur Radio Group is pleased to announce that its 70cms repeater is active once again after a period off the air.

The repeater has undergone refurbishment and now sports voice identification in place of the previous Morse code ident. Other works include a new power supply, new case, new cooling fan and a new antenna system.

The repeater, callsign EI7KYR, located in mid-Kerry can be accessed with a CTCSS tone of 103.5Hz, its output is 430.975MHz with a +7.6MHz shift.

The Kerry Amateur Radio Group welcome any reception reports and look forward to working many amateur stations on the repeater. Reception reports can be given to any Kerry Amateur Radio Group member or via email to EI1KARG@gmail.com.