SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 22 MARCH 2015

Good morning and welcome. Here is the SARL news read by ________________ (Name call and QTH). You may tune in to these bulletins on a Sunday morning at 08:15 CAT in Afrikaans and at 08:30 CAT in English. The bulletins may be heard via the many VHF and UHF relays as well as on HF on 7066 kHz from Pretoria. Echolink listeners may tune in to the relay by ZS0JPL
A text version is available from the SARL website, www.sarl.org.za where you may also sign up for future bulletins via email and download an audio copy of the bulletin.

IN THE NEWS TODAY
NEW REGULATIONS TO BE PUBLISHED SHORTLY
LICENSE FEES DUE ON 31 MARCH
BOOK NOW FOR THE SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION
ZS6MRK TO COMPETE IN THE CQ WW WPX COMPETITION
AND SARL@HOME TO ADDRESS DXING AND CONTESTING

** The revised frequency spectrum regulations are due out soon, it could be as early as next week. ICASA has completed the process of evaluating all the input and has submitted the final draft to the ICASA Council for approval.

The SARL submitted substantial comment which can still be found on the SARL web from the Amateur Radio Today link. The question of which of the SARL comments and recommendation have been accepted and included in the final regulations is unknown. At Thursday's quarterly SARL/ICASA liaison meeting ICASA was mum on the subject.


** The fees for amateur radio licenses are due before 31 March 2015. If you have not paid as yet, do so now. Always use the license number and your call sign as reference. If you paid your license at a Post Office you may find a small amount still due on the invoice. ICASA says that this should be ignored as it was an issue between the Post Office and ICASA and would be corrected automatically.


**
Book now for the SARL national convention to be held from 17-19 April 2015.
This annual event will this year be hosted by the Bloemfontein Amateur Radio Club in the city of Roses from Friday 17 April to Sunday 19 April. Reservations can now be made. Full details including a reservation form are available on the SARL web site at www.sarl.org.za.


** The South African Radio League 5 MHz activity weekend will be held on 28 and 29 March. The first slot will be run each day from 06:00-08:00 Central African Time with the second slot from 18:00-22:00 Central African Time. This is an SSB activity on 5 260 KHz and is only open to SARL members.


** The next SARL@Home will feature a presentation about DXing and contesting and will be held at 10:00 on Saturday 28 March at the National Amateur Radio Center.
Please call the office on 011-675-2393 to tell us that you are attending. It helps with the catering.


** The Magalies Radio-Amateur Club will be taking part in the CQ World-Wide WPX competition on the weekend of 28-29 March. The competition begins at 0000 UTC on Saturday and ends on 2359 UTC on Sunday. The purpose of the competition is to make worldwide contact with as many amateurs and prefixes as possible.
You are welcome to make yourself available and take part in the competition as a radio operator.

MRK invites everyone interested in seeing the competition station in action to come and visit on Saturday and Sunday. The competition station will be at Kleinfontein, Donkerhoek just east of Pretoria. Fires will be burning on Saturday afternoon, so bring your meat, liquid refreshments and come and enjoy the afternoon with the members of MRK. Safe camping facilities are also available for tents and caravans.
Information and a map is available on the MRK website www.zs6mrk.org For more information contact Pieter ZS6PA or Sam ZS6JZ via the contact detail listed on the MRK site.


** ZS90SARL has so far made about 6 220 contacts with 2 191 confirmations according to LoTW. All the logs have not yet been received. If you have not worked ZS90SARL yet, you have until the 19th April 2015 to do so.


** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:
Alexander Gerald Bauer, ZS1AG and
Pierre Joubert, ZSL1138.

Any objections to the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.
Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1 631 plus 38 affiliated clubs.


** Clubs are requested to update their contact details.
There are a number of clubs listed on the SARL web page at www.sarl.org.za/public/local/ClubsList.asp with outdated information. The SARL would like club committees to visit this page and if the information is outdated to update their information by clicking the "update" icon next to the club call sign. Updated information will be captured into the database by the SARL office.

** This is an urgent call to all radio amateurs. Please do not pay your R120 ham license fee into the account of the South African radio league. This causes an unwanted burden on the SARL admin office as well as on the SARL`s bank charges in terms of new additional transaction costs.
Should you have done this, and you have not informed the office of the SARL, these payments will be allocated as donation towards the president's fund.
The SARL will not renew your license on your behalf. Please pay your annual license renewal to ICASA as stipulated by the Telecommunications Act.


** The All Mode African DX competition took place last weekend. There was quite a bit of activity over the weekend and some stations did very well. Due to an oversight, the contest ran on the same weekend as the Beru contest and might have caused some confusion. So far about 25 logs have been received. The majority of the logs have come from DX stations. I am sure this contest will go from strength to strength, but the important part is to get more African stations involved. More information will be published later.


** Pretoria Amateur Radio Club (PARC) will have their first quarterly flea market for 2015 on Saturday 28 March. The gates open at 08:00. The venue is the usual PARC flea market venue at the Pretoria Old Motor Club in Keuning street, Silverton, next to the pioneer museum entrance. This venue is quite close to Pretoria Road, which is the old Pretoria to Bronkhorstspruit road. (East from Pretoria with Church street).

This is a large flea market with many vendors of new and used equipment. It is also an important social event in the amateur radio calendar, with amateurs from Pretoria and many other towns in Gauteng attending.

There is lots of safe parking. Refreshments will be available. Don't miss it - see you there at South Africa's oldest, largest and most active radio club.

If you want to book a table, or need more information, please contact Almero ZS6LDP on 083 938 8955, or send an email to almero@up.ac.za.


PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be at low to moderate levels. Local geomagnetic conditions are at unsettled levels, affecting HF communications. Sunspots AR2297 and AR2302 have "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic fields that harbor 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 40.

The 20 to 10 metre bands will, especially during the late afternoons, provide lots of DX fun.

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


Diary of events.

17-19 April - SARL national convention in Bloemfontein.
28 March - SARL @HOME at the National Amateur radio centre.
28-29 March - 5MHz Activity weekend.
28-29 March –ZS6MRK on the air with the CQ WW WPX contest.
28 March - PARC Flea market at PMC.
02 April - 80m QSO Party.
04 April - RaDAR Challenge.
11 April - SARL Autumn QRP Contest.
18 April – World amateur radio day.


Before we end this bulletin this morning let’s take a quick look at the leading story: ICASA has completed the process of evaluating all the input and have submitted the final draft to the ICASA Council for approval. The latest regulations may be published as early as this coming week. Keep your eyes peeled for that.

With that we have come to the end of this morning’s bulletin. Clubs and individuals are invited to place news items of interest on the SARL webpage under the newsinbox header no later than the Thursday preceding the desired bulletin date. If at all possible place items in both English and Afrikaans.

Also tune in to Amateur radio today at 10:00 CAT. The program may be heard on many VHF and UHF frequencies around the country as well as on 7082 kHz lower side band from Durban by Louis ZS5LP and on 7205 and 17660 AM via the transmitters of SENTECH. There is also a podcast by Dick ZS6RO. A repeat broadcast may be heard on Monday’s at 18:30 CAT on 4895 kHz. The non amateur relays are sponsored by SENTECH.

You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Dawie Conradie ZR6DHC, edited by Dick ZS6RO and read by ______________.

SARL news is a production of the South African Radio League, the representational body for amateur radio in South Africa.

Best wishes for the week ahead and thank you for listening.

/EX