Sunday 23rd June 2013 L.E.A.R.C. are holding a Direction Finding Contest and Barbecue.

The Direction Finding contest is starting at 1.00pm and the barbecue is starting at 5.00pm.

For those who helped at the Rally the Barbecue is free, but anyone else tickets can be purchased for £6.50 each (this meal includes burger, sausages, chicken drumsticks and salad). Kids meals are 3.50 each. If you want a steak you have to book a week in advance and it will cost £3.00 extra.

To receive a ticket or purchase a ticket contact either Raymond (MI0RMD) Jamie (2i0mfb) or Tommy (Mi0rvh).

Please note we must know exact numbers 10 days before barbecue!

Finally the barbecue is being run by J&N Barbecues.

The sixth weekly GB3CP Fermanagh Repeater Gathering is due at 9.00 pm this Wednesday 15 May. Mobile stations have priority and the purpose is to encourage and develop widespread friendly use of this and indeed other Repeaters. Net Controller for the evening will be Jonathan MacFarlane, MI0PPW.

Last week's fifth gathering involved eight radio amateurs, including one new to the gathering, Bob Mi6RAX. A good number, but fewer than on recent Wednsdays.

Lough Erne ARC is delighted by this GB3CP activity. These Gatherings aim to increase use of its Fermanagh Repeater. OK we now have Wednesday activity but next is how to get something similar on other days and times.

David GI4FUM emailed - you may well have an activity night on GB3CP on Wednesdays - when I am at my tech class in Belfast (6pm to 9pm). I was at a caravan rally at Portora Royal School from Friday evening to Monday afternoon. I monotored GB3CP and called through it several times. There was no activity on it at all.

LEARC funded the GB3CP set-up costs in 2009/10 and its maintenance since as a service to radio amateurs across Fermanagh and surrounding counties. The more that GB3CP is used the more that LEARC feels proud that its volunteers' work and its funding investments are worthwhile.

For previous information click ‘read the rest’


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Met at the IRTS Rally in Athlone, Raymond Long EI9DM with XYL Anne, lauded the Lough Erne Rally – run with precision, he declared, with a line of willing LEARC members there to help carry in and afterwards to carry out a whole van-load of boxes for his Long Communications stand.

Also mentioned was the tea, coffee and sandwiches that the LEARC rally team served from a trolley round each Trader and Exhibitor’s stand shortly before the rally opened.

It is good to be told when efforts are appreciated, as we have been by many others after this latest and earlier Lough Erne rallies.

For contact details for Long Communications and other Rally traders click the home page top line menu items Rally then Traders.

Note that Raymond can deliver to Enniskillen.

Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club is recruiting with the SHARE Coastguard Station for another short range communication (SRC) marine license course and examination, both again in SHARE and during May or June.

Anyone interested – radio amateur or otherwise - please give name(s), contact details, and preference of two evenings or one full day directly to Helen Flanagan at SHARE, Tel 028-6772-2122 or Email infor@shareholidayvillage.org

Alternatively make contact via LEARC Secretary. Michael Clarke, Tel 6862-1436 or Email sec@learc.eu

An SRC license certifies assesed competence in strict adherence to set operating procedures and language used in short range marine communications, for example entering a port, in emergency situations with Coastguard etc.

It is not like the wider amateur radio license. Instead the SRC license it is tightly focused on;y on clear safe standard operating procedures with a minimum of technical content, only using the one marine VHF band etc.

The course covered both speech and digital non-speech communications. Note in the photo the 16, calling channel, display of position by latitude & longitude, and the red button that automatically sends position in emergency.

For more on the previous 2012 course, click ‘read the rest’



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Lough Erne ARC plans another special event station at Marble Arch Caves International Geopark on the weekend 25 & 26 May 2013 at the start of European Geopark Week. Again, the call sign is GB2MAC and an NoV on Alan's license Gi6PYP.

Station set up and operator plans are on the agenda for the LEARC meeting in SHARE at 7.30 pm on Thursday 1 May. Station guests are very welcome from other clubs as are any radio amateurs and others visiting Marble Arch Caves.

For more about past GB2MAC stations click 'read the rest'



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Results for January’s popular IRTS 80 metres contest in Echo Ireland, March 2013 list Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club’s station Gi0LEC as the winner of the Outside EI Award for the top score outside the Republic in the SSB fixed station section.

SSB fixed with 42 entries was the contest’s largest section. First was the master contester himself, Thos EI2JD operating EI13CLAN, with 114 QSOs, 26 counties and 8112 points from Louth.

Fermanagh’s Lough Erne Club station, Gi0LEC was tenth overall scores 74/21/4893, and first among the 15 stations outside EI. Gi0LEC also had best score among the three club stations across the whole contest.

One other ranked 23rd in the SSB fixed section, Skerries Radio Club EI2NCR, Dublin, 40/20/2960. Our good neighbour to the south, Mayo Radio Experimenters Network, EI0M/P was the only station in SSB Portable and scored 20/12/960.

Other Fermanagh stations were Michael Mi5MTC, 32nd overall and 9th OEI, David Mi0DWE 39 & 12, and William 2i0EKN, 40/13 first time ever in a contest.

But this is as much a social as a competitive event. One main reason for entering is so that County Fermanagh will feature strongly, which it did and has increasingly done since 2009. Another is to build on-air operating experience for new amateurs like Mark Mi0PAS in this case, who had joined LEARC just 13 months before.

Next outing to Athlone for the IRTS AGM and Rally on Sunday 28 April now has added purpose – collect this IRTS 80m counties contest OEI Award for Gi0LEC.

For previous news click 'read the rest'.










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On a sunny Easter Tuesday, Ruth Elizabeth Margaret Richie, MI6REM married Brendan, thus became XYL, and is now Mrs Gallagher. LEARC members will remember meeting Brendan as Ruth’s guest at our Club’s winter Sunday lunches.

Ruth’s late father Edmund Gi8LDM became a much loved and respected stalwart of Lough Erne Amateur Radio Club, after moving from Belfast to Enniskillen about when LEARC began as a Club. RSGN Call Books lists QTH in Belfast in 1978 and Enniskillen from1981 - both also list Cliff Gi4CZW founder LEARC Secretary.

Edmund was the first Instructor when the new FIA examination system began. Members today from Gi8LDM’s Foundation courses include Iain Mi0IIG, William 2i0EKN etc. Ruth enrolled on a course cut short by her Father’s sad demise. A major motivation for new Foundation course a few years later was to enable Ruth to finish and get a Foundation license. She and 17 others did so in February 2010.

Ruth has a passion for hill walking. Brendan’s groom speech recounted chasing Ruth for many miles up and down Donegal’s mountains. A final footnote – one wedding present is a landscape showing Errigal and painted by Bob Mi6RAX, yet another interesting product from that seminal February 2010 Foundation course.

From all in Lough Erne ARC, every best wish to Brendan SWL and Ruth Mi6REM.

hi all - Raynet NI Yahoo group please join.
Thanks and 73
Herbie GI6JPO, Raynet NI Lough Erne Group Controller

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RAYNETNI/

There was a RAYNET stand at the Lough Erne Rally for the first time anyone remembers. Recently appointed West and Lough Erne Local Controllers, Eddie McCrystal Gi7FHZ and Herbie Graham Gi6JPO, found many interested and recruited about a dozen into RAYNET (Northern Ireland)

The role of RAYNET is to provide third party communications on behalf of duely authorised "User Services" as set out in the amateur radio license. For more go to www.raynetni.org.uk

The February meeting of Lough Erne ARC in SHARE had unanimously agreed to set up an area group to be called RAYNET NI Lough Erne within RAYNET Northern Ireland. The Group Controller is Herbie Graham Gi6JPO, the Club’s Vice-Chairman.

Herbie arranged the Club’s part in the recent major flood rescue exercise based at SHARE. Ireland’s largest residential activity centre, SHARE is also LEARC HQ, Rally venue and RCF Examination Centre.

As HM Coastguard Station for Lough Erne, SHARE hosted volunteers from north and south for their May 2011 Joint Search and Rescue Games. This RAYNET idea emerged back then when LEARC set up an ARDF foxhunt as of the search games. The West Tyrone club has taken a similar RAYNET initiative. We look forward to renewed involvement and local RAYNET N.I. activity in coming months.


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Many thanks to the Region 8 team who set up an RSGB stand that firmly ensured the national amateur radio society had its rightful strong presence at the Thirty Second Lough Erne Rally – probably the first time in 32 years the whole team attended

Phillip Hosey Mi0MSO, Regional Manager since January, is pictured with deputies Trevor Campbell Mi5TCC, Bobby Wadey Mi0RYL, and Melvyn Irvine Mi0MSR.

Bobby’s is the largest district: Down, Armagh and Fermanagh. She is very welcome. LEARC looks forward to her expert help on matters such as CASHOTA activations of Lough Erne Castles, using our aptly suffixed Full (Club) License GI0LEC.

Bobby replaces Raymond Ashe Gi8RLE to whom LEARC owes a very special debt of gratitude. His agreement to be Keeper was essential to the success of the club’s 2009 project to set up the Fermanagh Repeater GB3CP. Thus we made him an honorary member.

Raymond’s prompt and generous assistance was vital at times when the Repeater went down, making for lots of technical learning and ingenuity with Herbie Gi6JPO.

Other examples of Raymond’s vital support were his chairing of a couple of difficult AGMs at important points in the Club’s recent and revitalised history

There in more about the Region 8 team at http://www.rsgb-region-8.org.uk/