SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2015

Good morning and welcome to the weekly news bulletin of the South African Radio League read by ………………………….. [your name, call sign and QTH]

You can tune into the South African Radio League news bulletin on Sunday mornings at 08:15 Central African Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 Central African Time in English on HF and on many VHF and UHF repeaters around the country. Echolink listeners can connect to ZS0JPL for a relay. A podcast is available from the League’s web site.

This audio bulletin may be downloaded from the League’s website at www.sarl.org.za. You will find this bulletin and previous bulletins in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the web page. While you are there, you can sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

We start this morning’s bulletin with a silent key.

It is with sadness that we have to announce that Henry Jordaan ZS6BPQ, became a silent key on Saturday 24 October at the age of 93 after a short sick bed. Henry was an active member of the PotchefstroomAmateur Radio Club for many years.Our deepest sympathy with his son Andre and Salomie and grand children


PAUSE 5 SECONDS

In the news today

COASTAL AREAS BOOST VHF ON 144 MHZ

THE HAMNET SUMMER COMMUNICATIONS EXERCISE

AND

WORLD RADIO COMMUNICATION CONFERENCE 2015 STARTS ON 2 NOVEMBER


Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items.


**** South Africa is surrounded by the sea on the East Coast, Southern Coast and West Coasts. These coastal areas can provide some excellent Tropo Ducting propagation at times. Propagation along the East Coast has been well established long time ago on 144 MHz between East London and Ramsgate or further, and occasionally with Port Elizabeth. So well equipped Durban stations should have no problem of working as far south as Port Elizabeth. Even Bloemfontein has been heard. A 144 MHz SSB/FM two-way contact has been logged between Port Elizabeth and Richards Bay over a land distance of 840 km, and to Reunion Island on Digital and SSB.

The Southern Coast will come to life as soon as the VHF beacon on 144,410 MHz at Bredasdorp becomes active, and alert the many VHF amateurs along the coast from Cape Town to East London about Tropo openings. The West Coast is blessed with fantastic Tropo ducting all the way from Cape Town to Namibia and even as far afield as St. Helena Island. All that is required are some very keen VHF amateurs equipped with efficient 144 MHz horizontal beam antennas to take up the challenge and log another DX country.

If you live inland don't despair as approaching cold fronts will bring you some long distance openings too, otherwise watch for distant stations in the early mornings after sunrise or at night.


**** The Hamnet Summer Communications Exercise run over the last weekend was a resounding success according to Grant Southey, ZS1GS, principal organiser. Sixteen stations, scattered across the country as well as from Namibia participated and the Spring propagation conditions conspired to improve communications between the stations. In spite of the temptation to stay at home over the weekend and watch rugby, at least 60 radio operators manned their field stations living totally off the grid and without any facilities and made contact with each other on specified frequencies labelled only as "channels", to simulate emergencies where organisations need communications but don't understand anything about frequencies. Random two word messages, specific to each station were then sent to other specified stations, and will be checked by the organisers for accuracy of reception. Relays from station A to station B via station C, for example were permitted where stations were skip to each other. New messages had to be sent during each three hour segment between midday on Saturday the 24th and midday on Sunday the 25th.

All reports received so far from teams indicate their appreciation of the value of such an exercise, and all radio amateurs are encouraged to think about joining Hamnet and practising their operating procedures, to be of better use to their communities if disasters strike.


**** Amateur Radio's interests will be well represented as the 2015 ITU World RadioCommunication Conference or WRC-15 convenes from 2 November in Geneva, Switzerland. Preparations have been under way since the last WRC wrapped up in 2012. Held every 3 or 4 years, WRCs review, and, if necessary, revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of the radio frequency spectrum. Delegates will consider several items of interest to the Amateur Radio community during the nearly month-long international gathering. International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) President Tim Ellam, VE6SH/G4HUA, and several others from the three Regions will be on the IARU team or in other delegations.

The primary WRC-15 agenda item of interest to most radio amateurs is Agenda Item 1.4, which calls on delegates to consider the possibility of allocating an appropriate amount of spectrum - not necessarily contiguous - to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis within the band 5 250 to 5 450 kHz. Many amateurs have been hoping for a band, rather than the discrete channels now available in the US and in several other countries.

Other items that could affect Amateur Radio include:

Agenda Item 1.1, to consider additional spectrum for mobile services on a primary basis and identification of additional bands for commercial mobile telephony and data service - in essence, smartphones. In 2007, nearly 90 countries identified 3 400 to 3 500 MHz in the amateur 9-centimetre band for this purpose. Efforts to maintain amateur access to this band since then has been a country-by-country effort.

Agenda Item 1.6.1 will consider possible additional primary allocations for the fixed-satellite service of 250 MHz between 10 GHz and 17 GHz in Region 1. It also would review regulatory provisions on current fixed-satellite service allocations, considering ITU-R studies. The amateur 10 GHz allocation is not a potential target.

Agenda Item 1.10 seeks additional mobile-satellite allocations, including the satellite component of broadband applications, including mobile telephony and data services, in the range from 22 to 26 GHz. Proponents have not identified the amateur 24 GHz allocation as a potential solution.

Agenda Item 1.12 would consider extending the current worldwide allocation to the Earth exploration-satellite (active) service (EESS) in the band 9 300 to 9 900 MHz by up to 600 MHz, which would intrude into the amateur 10 GHz allocation. Although EESS is likely to obtain a primary allocation that overlaps the 10 GHz band in full or in part, its impact on Amateur Radio would likely be nominal

Agenda Item 1.18 will address automotive radar applications at 77,5 to 78,0 GHz. Studies have indicated general compatibility with these applications and Amateur Radio and, in any case, the primary status of Amateur Radio is not proposed to be downgraded.

Read the full report at www.arrl.org/news/world-radiocommunication-conference-2015-starts-on-november-2


You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.


**** A draft copy of the 2016 Contest manual has been published for comment. It can be found at www.sarl.org.za/public/contests/contestrules.asp

Could the Sponsors of the various contests please check that their info is correct especially the email addresses.

If there are any changes, please let me have the changes by the 16th November. Please use the following email address contest@sarl.org.za


**** In this week’s propagation report, Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at low to moderate levels. Active Sunspot 2443 might be the source of C-class solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 38.

The 20 to 10 m bands will provide lots of DX fun, especially during the late afternoons and in the evenings.

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


**** And now for the diary of events

1 November - Your JOTA/JOTI report must be submitted by today
7 November - the RaDAR contest
8 November - the PEARS HF contest
10 November –closing date for articles for the November/December Radio ZS
16 November – closing date for amendments and changes of contact details for the 2016 contest handbook.


To end this bulletin, a recap of our main news items this morning.

**** Amateur Radio's interests will be well represented as the 2015 ITU World RadioCommunication Conference or WRC-15 convenes from 2 November in Geneva, Switzerland. Preparations have been under way since the last WRC wrapped up in 2012. Held every 3 or 4 years, WRCs review, and, if necessary, revise the Radio Regulations, the international treaty governing the use of the radio frequency spectrum. Delegates will consider several items of interest to the Amateur Radio community during the nearly month-long international gathering.



You are welcome to join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine programme ‘Amateur Radio Today’ at 10:00 Central African Time. The programme can be heard on VHF and UHF repeaters countrywide and on 7 082 kHz lower side-band and on 7 205 kHz and 17 760 kHz AM. There is also a podcast available from Dick Stratford, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast can be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African Time on 3 230 kHz AM.

We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; send these by e-mail to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the radio transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Etienne Naude, ZS6EFN, edited by Brian Utterson, ZS6AEand read byRory Norton, ZS2BL.

From the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead.

73 and thank you for listening

/EX