SARL News Sunday 11 May 2014

Good morning and welcome, you are tuned to ZS6SRL the official voice of the South African Radio League. The South African Radio League broadcasts a weekly news bulletin on HF and many VHF/UHF repeaters every Sunday morning at 08:15 CAT in Afrikaans and at 08:30 CAT in English. Listeners on Echolink may connect to ZS0JPL.

You may download an audio version of this bulletin by following the link on the front page of the South African Radio League website at www.sarl.org.za. While you are there, you may also obtain a text version of this bulletin. You may also sign up to receive future bulletins via e-mail.

This bulletin is read by .......... (your name, call sign and QTH where applicable)

The News team wishes all mothers a very special Mother’s Day and may every day be Mother’s day!

IN THE NEWS TODAY

PAPERS FOR THE 2014 IARU REGION 1 GENERAL CONFERENCE AVAILABLE

THERE IS A VACANCY AT THE SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE

and

DETAILS OF THE RTA IN DURBAN NOW ON THE WEB

The leading story this week

The papers for the 2014 IARU Region 1 General Conference are available for download from the Region 1 web site at www.iaru-r1.org, on the left select Docu-ments and then Conferences. They are in the 2014 - Varna General Conference folder. The South African Radio League team to the conference would like to hear your comments on these papers. C2 is the financial papers, C3 is the administrative and organisational papers, C4 is the HF papers and C5 is the VHF/UHF and Micro-wave papers. You can visit the Conference web site at http://iarur1con2014.bfra.bg/

The Region 1 General Conference will be held from 20 to 27 September at the Fla-mingo Grand Hotel in Albena, Bulgaria on the Black Sea coast. Albena is about 30 km north of Varna. Fifty-four member societies from Region 1 will be attending the conference.

THERE IS A VACANCY AT THE SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE. Mariska Faasen will be leaving the employment of the South African Radio League at the end of May. The South African Radio League is inviting interested persons to send their CV to the secretary@sarl.org.za. Applicants should preferably live in the area of the SARL National Amateur Radio Centre at Radiokop, Roodepoort. The successful candidate will have experience in office administration and be fully conversant with the Windows Office suite of software. A job specification is available on request from the secretary.

The Council of the South African Radio League thanks Mariska for her support of the SARL and here service over the past 5 year and wish her well for the future.

THE DETAILS OF THE RTA IN DURBAN ARE NOW ON THE WEB. The first South African Radio League Radio Technology in Action symposium will be held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday 21 June. The programme features a great variety of subjects of interest to radio amateurs and electronic enthusiast. A number of presentations will be supported by practical demonstrations.

The full programme and booking form are now available at www.sarl.org.za, select the Radio Technology in Action link on the left hand side of the home page. If you like a copy of the programme in your e-mail inbox, send an email to rta@sarl.org.za with RTA Durban in the subject line.

Frik Wolff, ZS6FZ, designed an affordable Isolated USB Transceiver Control Inter-face kit with a combination of a USB to serial module. The kit uses conventional through-hole components which require no previous experience to build. Frik will discuss details of how to construct the kit and give a practical demonstration. The kit can be ordered on the RTA booking form. The kit will only be available at the RTA and cannot be ordered separately. Delegates can also order a CD with all the pres-entations and additional interesting materials and programs.

HAVE YOU BOOKED FOR THE 2014 SA AMSAT SPACE SYMPOSIUM? If not, do it now. One of the exciting presentations is about a thruster to propel a satellite into a higher orbit. The presentation by Johnathan Lun created a lot of excitement at a satellite conference held in the USA late last year. Operate through the KLETSKOUS transponder. A working proto-type will be demonstrated at the symposium. The full programme and booking form are available on www.amsatsa.org.za

FRIK WOLFF, ZS6FZ, THE TECHNICAL MANAGER FOR REPEATERS, SAYS in light of last Sunday's news report on the Parys repeater, that. The Vaal Triangle Branch and NOT the Sasolburg Radio Club installed a limited range repeater at the Dutch Refermed Church Oos in Parys for the use by local amateurs and to cover the N1 highway. The frequency is indeed 145,6875 MHz with a 88,5 Hz access tone. The repeater works well with contact reports from Three Rivers, Sasolburg and surrounding areas around Parys.

The cable theft occurred at the Vaal Triangle Branch repeater installation at Brakfontein. Vandals have previously stolen the power cables, after the cables had been replaced, they were stolen again. The cables have now replaced, at great cost to the Vaal Triangle Branch. Gary, ZS6YI, the repeater manager of the Vaal Triangle Branch, reports that the repeater is once again 100 % operational.

Our apologies to the Sasolburg Radio Club and Vaal Triangle Branch for the confusion from the report last Sunday.”

CONTEST NEWS

This afternoon you may participate in the Antique Wireless Association SSB Valve QSO Party from 15:00 to 19:00 CAT with contacts on both the 40 and 80 bands. Use the following frequencies 7 063 to 7 100 kHz and 3 603 to 3 650 kHz during the contest. The exchange is call signs, a RS report, a consecutive serial number starting at 001 and type of radio used, e.g. HT37 Tx.

Three points per contact is scored when using an all valve radio; two points per con-tact for hybrid radios (valve and solid state) and one point per contact for a Solid State Radio. The multiplier is 3 points per contact for all valve radios; 2 points per contact for hybrid (valve and solid state) radios and 1 point for Solid State radios.

All logs to be submitted by 31 May to the Southern African Antique Wireless Asso-ciation, PO Box 12320, Benoryn, 1504 or by e-mail to andyzs6ady@vodamail.co.za. Please refer to the SARL Contest Manual for any queries.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE 5 MHZ ACTIVITY WEEKEND promises to be an exciting opportunity to contribute to propagation research and have fun operating on this band. Put up an inverted V for the 5 MHz band, it will work so much better than using a 40 or 80 metre antenna with an antenna tuner.

To do some meaningful research set up the WSPR program. The South African Ra-dio League propagation web pages include a full tutorial on how to set-up WSPR on the station computer or laptop. As the South African Radio League holds a license for 5 250 and 5 260 kHz only members who have registered may use the frequencies. Details on how to register and the latest 5 MHz newsletter by Paul Gaskell, G4MWO, are available on the SARL propagation research web pages.

We have received the results of two local contests.

There was quite a lot of activity for the South African Radio League QRP Contest held on 19 April and 6 logs were received. The Pretoria Amateur Radio Club, ZS6PTA took top honours followed by the West Rand Amateur Radio Club, ZS6WR, Andre Botes, ZS2ACP, Theo Bresler, ZS6TVB, Johannes van Zijl, ZS4DZ and Theunis Potgieter, ZS2EC.

Congratulations to ZS6PTA and thanks to all who submitted logs.

Now we look at the results of the RaDAR contest. Eddie, ZS6BNE, says it is difficult to determine how many official participants took part in the April 2014 RaDAR con-test because not everyone sends his / her log to the contest organiser for evaluation. The RaDAR contest requires movement after every 5 QSOs. It's not everybody's cup of tea but it's really a fun activity and should be seen as such. Some RaDAR operators, like John ZS5J, did send at least a check log. The following operators submitted logs – Dirk, ZS6AKU, Eddie, ZS6BNE, Jaco, ZR6CMG, Lucy, M6ECG, and John MW/ZS5J (check log).

Dirk worked from home as a portable station, Eddie and Lucy took on the "on foot" category, Jaco took on the mobile category and John the portable category. Lucy and Jaco excelled in their operation by communicating for the full four hours while moving after every 5 contacts and are the resulting winners of their categories.

The ultimate goal for the 2014 international RaDAR contest is the intercontinental RaDAR to RaDAR QSOs. John and Eddie were successful in making such a QSO. John was on holiday and had deployed a portable RaDAR station on a hill in Wales. Both stations were using only 5 Watts. John's antenna, a vertical dipole and Eddie's antenna a roll up 10 m wire J-Pole. The QSO took place using CW on 28 060 kHz. Signal was around RST 529.

Congratulations to all the winners!

You are tuned to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League and we now look at the HF Propagation report

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be at moder-ate levels. Sunspot AR2056 has a "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field that harbours enough energy for X-class solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 105.

All the bands from 20 to 10 m will provide lots of DX fun with 15 m providing the best openings with 20 m not far behind. Also look out for some 6 m openings with the higher solar activity.

Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

WHAT IS IN THE DIARY OF EVENTS?

11 May – the AWA SSB Valve QSO Party this afternoon
17 and 18 May - South African Radio League members are invited to take part in the 5 MHz activity weekend dedicated to propagation research
Also on 17 May, the East Rand Radio Club will be hosting their monthly meeting to welcome new members after the RAE
Then on Saturday 24 May, the SA AMSAT Space Symposium takes place at the In-novation Hub
On Sunday 25 May, the South African Radio League Digital Contest takes place.
And on Saturday 21 June you can attend the RTA in Durban.
You can get more information on these and other happenings on the South African Radio League website at www.sarl.org.za

We end this week’s news with a look back at our top story:

The papers for the 2014 IARU Region 1 General Conference are available for download from the Region 1 web site at www.iaru-r1.org, on the left select Docu-ments and then Conferences.

That brings us to the end of the news

The South African Radio League invites you to listen to Amateur Radio Today every Sunday morning at 10:00 local time on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area, and on the 145,650 network in Johannesburg with relays on 7 082, 7 205, and 17 660 kHz. There is a podcast by Dick, ZS6RO. For web-streaming and Echolink by Chris, ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on 'Amateur Radio Today', go down the green column and click on 'LISTEN ON THE WEB'.

A repeat transmission can be heard on Mondays at 16:30 UTC on 3 230 kHz. The website also lists various other retransmissions. Reception reports, comments and suggestions are invited. Send an email to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

South African Radio League News invites clubs and individuals to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and short-wave listeners. Submit news items, if possible in both English and Afrikaans, to www.sarl.org.za/newsinbox.asp, no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.

You have listened to a bulletin of the South African Radio League compiled by Dennis Green, ZS4BS.

Thank you for listening, 73's and 88's