SARL NEWS SUNDAY 11 JANUARY 2015
Good morning and welcome, you are tuned to a newscast of the South African Radio League read by __________________________ (Name and Callsign) from _____________________(QTH). You may tune in to a SARL newscast on Sunday morning at 08:15 local time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 local time in English on HF, VHF and UHF frequencies around the country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay and a podcast is also available from the official SARL webpage www.sarl.org.za.
You may find this and previous bulletins in text form on the SARL webpage under the news link on the left. While you are there you may also sign up to receive future bulletins via e mail.
IN THE NEWS TODAY
YASME EXELLENCE AWARD
7 FEBRUARY SARL@HOME
DRAFT AMENDMENTS TO RADIO REGULATIONS
COMPETITIONS
** The Board of Directors of the Yasme Foundation (www.yasme.org) has announced the recipients of the Yasme Excellence Awards for 2014. IARU Region 1 is delighted to learn that Lisa Leenders, PA2LS, the Chairman of the Region 1 Youth Working Group and Florin-Cristian Predescu, YO9CNU, have been awarded a Yasme Excellence award for their work in organising and promoting Youngsters on the Air,YOTA, and other amateur radio youth activities.
The Yasme Excellence Award is presented to individuals who, through their own service, creativity, effort and dedication, have made a significant contribution to amateur radio. The contribution may be in recognition of technical, operating or organizational achievement, as all three are necessary for amateur radio to grow and prosper.
The Yasme Foundation has awarded IARU Region 1 a grant of $5 000 in support of youth activities in amateur radio. In a separate action, the Yasme Foundation has awarded IARU Region 1 Member Society, the Egyptian Radio Amateurs Society for Development (ERASD) a grant of $2 000 in support of its activities.
In acknowledging the award to IARU Region 1 for its youth programme, the President of IARU Region 1, Don Beattie, G3BJ, said, "We are delighted that Yasme has chosen to recognise and support the work we are doing here in IARU Region 1. The future of amateur radio lies in our ability to attract and retain high calibre entrants to our ranks. Whilst the march of communications technology might, to some, seem to cast a question mark over "traditional" amateur radio, our view is that there is much to attract today's youth into our ranks. With Yasme's financial support, we will be able to work even more energetically to help our Member Societies bring focus to attracting the new blood which amateur radio needs so much."
** The first SARL@HOME for 2015 will be held on 7 February and there will be two events on the same day. Frik Wolf ZS6FZ will present another surface mount technology workshop where you will learn how to work with surface mount components. The workshop includes building a small project to put your new gained knowledge into practice, The cost for the workshop is R150 for SARL members and R300 for non-members. This includes the PC board and components for the project and a CD containing a wealth of information and videos. Full details are on the web. The workshop starts at 08:30
The second event is a WSPR discussion starting at 14:00. Learn more about the SARL's fascinating 5 MHz propagation research project with Stuart Moss, ZS6SGM and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV.
** Time is running out for comments on the latest draft radio regulations published at the end of last year.
Some of the impact on radio amateurs is the increase in power on certain bands and the 25 year age limit of ZU licwnse holders which means that when a ZU license holder reaches 25 years of age the license will be cancelled as well as an amendment to who may be in possession of a continuous tuning receiver above 30 MHz.
The SARL is studying the draft amendments and invites radio amateurs to do the same and send their comments to sarlregwg@sarl.org.za by 15 January 2015 for consideration by the SARL council when finalising the SARL comments to ICASA.
The SARL Regulatory Workgroup is scheduled to meet shortly after the 15th of January to consider all the input and make recommendation to the SARL council who will meet 22 January.
** For the week 12 - 18 January the callsign ZS90SARL will be operated by Mike Stokes, ZS6AI from Kempton Park.
From Sunday 18 February a series of programmes about the early history of amateur radio in South Africa and the SARL will be included in Amateur Radio Today. These features will also be available as podcast.
** The first session of the PEARS VHF/UHF Contest will start at 18:00 on Friday 16 January and ends at 16:00 on Saturday afternoon. The second session commences immediatly therafter and the contest concludes at 14:00 CAT on Sunday 18 January 2015. Country-wide contacts are possible throughout the day via Tropo propagation, but Tropo Ducting will peak an hour or two after sunrise on 50 MHz, 144 MHz, 432 MHZ and 1296 MHz. The preferred band at night is 144 MHz, the Tropo band, which could produce some very long distance contacts during Tropo Ducting. Keep an eye open on 50 MHz, the Magic Band, around noon to 14:00 for possible strong Sporadic-E DX openings from Namibia and Zimbabwe, where amateurs have been alerted about Es conditions.
All times are in South African Standard time.
Divisional prizes for the winners in the 144,400 MHz FM category have so far been confirmed by several divisions, and will be presented to the respective winners by the sponsors. Division 1 - pending. Division 2 - Rory Morton, ZS2BL, a dual 2m/70cm Yagi beam antenna, Division 4 - pending, Division 5 - Highway Amateur Radio Club, a dual 2m/70cm Yagi beam antenna, Division 6 - Willem Badenhorst, ZS6WAB, a dual 2m/70cm Yagi beam antenna.
The winner and runner-up in this category will be rewarded with a certificate. Certificates will be e-mailed by ZS2FM on behalf of PEARS.
** Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ, informed us that he will be active from Locator JG82ie in Rosh Pinah, Namibia, on 50 MHz, 70 MHz and 144 MHz during the PEARS VHF/UHF Contest, and using a 9 element M2 horizontal Yagi, a 6 element horizontal Yagi and a 10 element horizontal Yagi, respectively. Watch out for this DX station especially around noon for Sporadic-E openings.
Mike Kellett, ZS1TAF, at Cape Town confirmed that he will be also active during the PEARS VHF/UHF Contest on 144 MHz and 432 MHz SSB. He should have his 2 metre horizontal Yagi ready by then.
** The QRP contests are intended to be fun activities to promote QRP operation between radio amateurs. Using homebuilt equipment or operating as a portable or field station encouraged, but is not a requirement. The Summer QRP Contest will be on the air on Saturday 24 January from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC with SSB and CW operation using 5 watts maximum output or less. A station may be worked once per band per mode and there are no antenna restrictions.
The first hour is limited to the 40 m only, the remaining two hours any HF, excluding the WARC, band may be used. Please comply with the contest-preferred segments as detailed in the general rules. It would be advantageous to use the standard QRP calling frequencies as the starting point.
The exchange is a RS or RST report and your grid locator. Please consider exchanging realistic signal reports and use the 6-character grid locator. Each contact counts 1 point, each South African call area as a multiplier and each DXCC country worked counts as a multiplier.
Logs must be submitted by 31 January to contest@sarl.org.za. Indicate if the operator is a lad or YL and a photo/s of the station operating MUST accompany every log entry. Find the complete rules in the 2015 Blue Book.
** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:
John A Nilsen, LA4QAA;
Barend Leendertz, ZSL1129;
Edward Hepher,ZSL1130.
Any objections against the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.
Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1600 plus 35 affiliated clubs
** NOMINATION FOR AWARDS . The December SARL letter to members included an invitation to members to nominate for various awards. The closing date is 31 January 2015. If you lost the details, the December letter can be downloaded from the member's only section of the SARL web.
** The SARL's Awards Manager, Tjerk Lammers ZS6P, reports that he has received another application from Jan Botha ZS4JAN for an assortment of Worked All ZS endorsements.
Jan has been awarded Worked All ZS 1500 on Mixed modes, WAZS-1400 on SSB, WAZS-1300 on 40 m, WAZS-700 on 80 m and WAZS-200 on AM. Jan continues to dominate the WAZS lists. In all cases, his score is at least twice that of the runner-up.
Worked All ZS offers an incentive to contact fellow South Africans. Most of the required confirmations can be collected effortlessly through the SA-QSL system, available on the SARL's Web site.
** While there was some great activity, the participation by clubs was disappointing. Thanks and congratulations to the following young radio amateurs who kept the South African flag flying high.
Karel Bezuidenhout ZR6K operated PSK31 / RTTY on 10m from Polokwane and made 176 contacts. Mitchel Mynhardt ZS6YH and his sister Melinda ZU6MM made 122 contacts on 10m SSB. Koos Fick ZR6KF managed 144 QSOs on 10m & 20m SSB and Brian Jones ZR6V also from Polokwane made 37 contacts on 10m SSB.
** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be at low levels. Decaying Sunspot AR2253 has a "beta-gamma" magnetic field that harbors enough energy for M-class solar flares.
If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 105.
The 20 to 10 m bands will provide lots of DX fun.
Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Diary of events.
15 January - Submit your comments on the radio regulations draft amendments.
12 to 18 January ZS90SARL from KEMPTONPARK on the air.
16 & 17 January PEARS VHF / UHF COMPETITION.
24 January QRP contest.
31 January - final day for Nomination Awards.
We end this bulletin with a recap of our main story.
The Board of Directors of the Yasme Foundation has announced the recipients of the Yasme Excellence Awards for 2014. The award is bestowed in recognition of their work in organising and promoting Youngsters on the Air ,YOTA, and amateur radio youth activities.
You are invited to submit news items of interest to the SARL by following the newsinbox link on the SARL webpage. Newsitems should reach the newsteam not later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date for inclusion in the bulletin.
You may also join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur magazine program Amateur Radio Today at 10:00 local time.The programme may be heard on VHF and UHF repeaters countrywide and also on 7082kHz lower side-band and on 7205kHz and 17660kHz AM.There is also a podcast by Dick ZS6RO.A replay may be heard on Monday evenings 18:30 local time on 3230kHz AM. Theradio transmissions on the non amateur frequency bands are sponsored by Sentech.
You have listened to a news bulletin compiled a by Johann ZS6PSS, edited by Dawie Conradie ZR6DHC and read by
Thank you for listening, and best wishes for the week ahead, 73s.
/EX
