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OK, it was only a pretend crash, but it was a great scenario for a training exercise. The East Leinster Amateur Radio Club has been out practicing again – remember our “Black Sky” event earlier this year! This time the project was a bit more adventurous. We got together with the Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue Team (MR) and with Wicklow Civil Defence (CD) to run a combined operation to practice and hone our skills with simulated emergency communications. We also had a guest observer from the Wireless Communications Laboratory at the Tyndall Institute with us. The Glen team responded to an imaginary small aircraft crash in the Ow Valley (just south of Lug na Coille). This carefully chosen location near Aughavannagh had no mobile phone signal, no Tetra radio signal and was very definitely out of line-of-sight for VHF signals. The background to the exercise was to simulate the failure of the Tetra radio system operated by the emergency services, and to assess the feasibility of using HF

Introduction On Saturday the 27th of May the members of the East Leinster Amateur Radio Club (ELARC) conducted a Black Sky drill amongst the sunny Wicklow mountains. Some background to the drill. A Black Sky drill is a simulation of a major extended power outage. The power outage can be either man made, such as an electromagnetic pulse, a cyber-attack on the grid or a physical attack on the power distribution network. It can also be caused by a natural phenomenon such as a coronal mass ejection similar to the Carrington event of 1849 which wiped out large sections off the early Telegraph system in the United States. Causing Telegraph stations to burst into flames. Other causes can be winter ice storms, hurricanes, or other major weather events. These black sky events are typically very rare but have a very high impact to the electrical distribution grid. Training Goals This drill is a scripted, Directed Net with some specific training goals: Improve operator message handling skills. Be

With portable operations being the main focus area for the East Leinster Amateur Radio Club (ELARC), partaking in the Winter Field Day is not a surprise. We set out to establish a station at the Irish Military Museum & Park . Access to the vast camping area was a factor in our success. Located on the north facing side of a hill outside Collon, just inside the Co Meath border. With good take-off for HF DX to the North, East and West. Our setup consisted of several radio systems in the communication tent. We could operate on 160/80/40/20 metre bands. We used homebrew, dipoles, linked dipoles, EFHW , and Clansman military dipole for the 160m band. 80m and 160m antennas were deployed in NVIS fashion. Where the 40m and 20m were a bit higher relative to the wavelength. Our wires were supported by a 10m telescopic mast, a couple of fishing rods and local vegetation. Radios were a standard HAM issue Yaesu FT-857D and FT-891. In total we were able to operate 4 bands at the same time. We did

We are in the process of planning another 4 Summits (might be just 3, we'll see what happens) on 4m between Christmas and New Years Day.  The summits will be on the east coast of Ireland in Wicklow and/or Cooley Mountains. So QSO's into GW and north east G will be highly probable, especially on 4m.  The primary event date is Thursday 29th Dec. with Friday 30th as an alternate date.  The weather will be the main factor. We'll post an update soon with summit locations and frequency's More info here too https://wiki.oarc.uk/xmas-elarc-portable-day-2022

By  Michael Kennedy (EI6IRB) The objective was to undertake a basic rebuild of a 1Ah 24v alkaline Clansman radio battery (NSN 6140-99-620-8058) to allow it to be used on various Clansman radios, particularly the PRC-320 and PRC-351. The battery arrived among the ancillaries with a recently purchased PRC319. It was manufactured in July 1989. Unlikely to charge, let alone hold a charge, the battery was test-charged under constant observation using a standard Clansman 28v battery charger (NSN 6130-99-117-0450). The battery case soon became hand-hot and after ten to fifteen minutes it began leaking battery content which appeared to ‘boil’ and bubble out of the top of the unit. Unsurprisingly, the battery did not hold a charge. As anticipated, it was unserviceable. As the case was in a very good cosmetic condition, there was every chance that the battery could be refitted with a similar voltage and ampere battery and made serviceable again. The first task was to open the unit and remove the

Members of East Leinster Amateur Radio Club, the 98th Dublin Scouts and the 7th Kildare Scouts have teamed up to activate EI-98-JOTA (Dublin) and EI-7-JOTS (Kildare) for the 2022 JOTA-JOTI weekend. We look forward to making contact with you by HF (80/40/20) , VHF (2m/4m) or DMR over the weekend. 15-16 October 2022. HF 80m  3.690 Mhz +/- QRM 40m  7.090 Mhz +/- QRM 20m 14.290 Mhz +/- QRM Listen out for us on DMR Talk Group 272907 JOTA IRL. Local VHF 2 Meter Repeaters EI2KPR - 145.7625 -0.6 Mhz  88.5 Hz (Dublin) EI2CCR - 145.6750 -0.6 Mhz 110.9 Hz (Dublin/Kildare) EI7MLD (DMR) - 430.3000 +9.0 Mhz CC1 (Kildare) Simplex on 2 Meters and 4 Meters 2m VHF Simplex - 145.5000 Mhz FM +/- QRM 4m VHF Simplex -  70.4500 Mhz FM +/- QRM 98th Dublin Scouts location is the "Bog of the Ring Scout Campsite, Dublin, Ireland" Grid IO63VN29 QSL via QRZ EI98JOTA 98 Dublin Scout Group 7th Kildare Rathangan Scouts location is the "Rathangan Scout Den, Kildare, Ireland" Grid :   IO63LF93 QSL