SARL NEWS SUNDAY 23 DECEMBER 2007
You are listening to ZS6SRL the official Radio Station of the South African Radio League, the National Body for Amateur Radio in South Africa, with a news bulletin that is transmitted every Sunday at 08:15 CAT in Afrikaans and at 08:30 CAT in English. To listen to a web stream or Echolink by ZS6FCS visit www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI and follow the links for details.
You can download this and previous bulletins from www.sarl.org.za and you can also subscribe there to receive future bulletins by email.
Your newsreader this morning is Hans, ZS6KR, on 145,725 and 7,066 MHz from Pretoria with relays on 28,325, 14,235, 10,135, 7,066 and 3,695 MHz SSB as well as 51,400, 438,825 and 1 296 MHz FM in the Pretoria area. (Other newsreaders please change to suit).
SILENT KEYS
It is with regret that we must report the passing of two radio amateurs.
C.J. Thwaites, ZS5CTC ex ZS6BUC ex ZS2PA, passed away a few weeks ago.
Paula van Tonder, ZU6PVT, lost her life in a car accident. She was a member of the ZS6JVT club and became a radio amateur in May 2007.
Our sincerest condolences go to their families and friends.
(PAUSE)
In the news today:
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
QSL BUREAU REQUEST
ICASA CONFIRMS CALL SIGN PREFIX AREAS
BOUVET ISLAND ON THE AIR WITH ZS6GCM
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and other important and interesting news items.
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
"As the festive season is upon us the Council of the SARL and I would like to use this opportunity to wish all radio amateurs and their families an enjoyable festive season and a happy and prosperous New Year”.
“I would like to thank members of the SARL for their loyal support and dedication to amateur radio. As the national body for Amateur Radio in South Africa, the SARL is dedicated to represent Radio Amateurs at all levels of government and internationally through the International Amateur Radio Union to ensure that our hobby prospers. Without your loyal support the SARL would not be able to do this”.
“May the spirit of the festive season touch you and the holiday period generate new energy for the year ahead. From an Amateur Radio perspective we are looking for to many exciting events on the 2008 calendar”. This was from Graham Hartlett, ZS6GJH.
QSL BUREAU REQUEST
There is no question regarding the important service the QSL bureau performs in getting your QSL cards to you and dispatching them worldwide. All this thanks to a few volunteers who willingly give up their spare time to sort and dispatch cards countrywide!
The bureau currently needs to fill two vacancies caused by Ron, ZS6BHH, and Viv, ZS6CAA, who after 10 years of service feel it's time to stand down. We are very grateful to them for all the time and effort they have spent sorting cards for the benefit of all amateur radio operators around South Africa.
All we need is 2 days per month out of your life, namely the 2nd and last Tuesday of every month. These duties are to begin in January 2008; this means next month.
It will be appreciated if you can fill the gap, so please phone Francois, ZS6BUU, at 011 679 5260 if you would like to offer your services.
ICASA CONFIRMS CALL SIGN PREFIX AREAS
ICASA has cleared up the confusion of callsign areas that came about when the provinces changed after 1994. The following are the prefix areas:
ZR1/ZS1/ZU1 Western Cape Province;
ZR2/ZS2/ZU2 Eastern Cape Province;
ZR3/ZS3/ZU3 Northern Cape Province;
ZR4/ZS4/ZU4 Free Sate Province;
ZR5/ZS5/ZU5 KwaZulu Natal Province;
ZR6/ZS6/ZU6 Gauteng/ North West/ Mpumalanga/ Limpopo Provinces;
ZR7/ZS7/ZU7 South African Antarctica;
ZR8/ZS8/ZU8 Prince Edward and Marion Island.
In a letter to the SARL ICASA's Senior Manager: Frequency Spectrum, Philemon Molefe, confirmed that the Authority will consider applications from amateurs residing on the borders of these provinces for callsign prefixes of their choice. He also stated that amateurs who were allocated different prefixes may continue to use them. Should they wish to change their call signs to align with the new prefixes, the applicable application process must be followed.
BOUVET ISLAND ON THE AIR WITH ZS6GCM
Newly licensed operator Petrus, ZS6GCM, is currently on Bouvet Island and is expected to stay there till 14 February 2008. He is part of a five man Norwegian led research team. Petrus is the medical officer of the team and will also be involved with the research.
On the 19 December 2007 Petrus was granted temporary permission to operate an amateur radio station for the duration of the 2007/2008 scientific expedition to Bouvet Island using the callsign 3Y0E.
Tom V. Segalstad, LA4LN, and Trond Olsen, LA8XM, assisted in obtaining the permission to operate from Bouvet. Colin McGowan, MM0NDX, has sponsored a dedicated website for the expedition and will act as the webmaster., The URL is www.3y0e.wordpress.com. ,The site is under construction and should be operational within a few of days.
An Icom IC-735 and Hustler 4-BTV vertical antenna were made available by the NCDXF, OKDXA and Bernie van der Walt, ZS4TX.
Being newly licensed, Petrus, ZS6GCM, has limited HF experience. He underwent a brief training session on operating procedures by Rhynhardt Louw, ZS6DXB, prior to his departure. Video footage and audio recordings of past DXpeditions were used to give Petrus an understanding of what he is letting himself in for. Petrus will have limited time to operate due to a heavy workload and availability of electrical power.
Visit www.sarl.org.za for more details about Bouvet and updates on the Bouvet operation.
THIRTEEN MEMBERS NOMINATED FOR 2008/2009 SARL COUNCIL
Thirteen members have been nominated the 2008/2009 SARL Council. As the number of nominations is less than 15, no election will take place and Councillors will be officially inducted at the Annual General meeting to be held in Bloemfontein on 12 April 2008. The nominees are:
Graham Hartlett, ZS6GJH;
Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT;
Henry Chamberlain, ZS1AAZ;
Hans v d Groenendaal, ZS6AKV;
Dennis Green, ZS4BS;
Ivan Newman, ZS2ILN;
Louw Erasmus, ZS6LME;
Piet Badenhorst, ZS6PJB;
Fred Scheepers, ZS1FCS;
Graham Butler, ZS1GVB;
Mark Zank, ZS6YES;
Laurie Devereaux, ZS5DL,and
Malcolm Kriel, ZS4SM.
Congratulations to the nominees.
SOME EXCITING ACTION IN STORE FOR THE SARL-HMO BEACON PROGRAMME
A few months have passed and we now have six beacons on the air. It is
becoming obvious that the service with its full compliment of beacons
and accessories will be a very useful tool for each of the participating
parties. "As we progress we are discovering new features of the beacon service. For next year we have some exciting projects on the drawing board", Lee-Anne McKinnell ZS2LAW said.
The beacon team is working on a prototype of a digital receiver that will monitor the beacons continually up to period of a few weeks. The receiver stores the call sign and RST in a data logger in the receiver. After a few weeks or earlier the receiver can be plugged into your USB port and it will download its report into a text file. This file contains Date - Time - Call Sign - RST for all the beacons heard at your receiving base station. The team will supplement this with a computer program called the "Beacon Companion". This program takes the propagation results from your beacon receiver and will predict the propagation to each area of South Africa from your base. In addition you can enter a destination that you wish to communicate with, and the program will tell you what will be the best propagation time for you to do this. This program also helps you to see propagation patterns and do detailed analysis from the real data gathered at your home base.
HIGHWAY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB SUCCESSFUL ZU-EXAM
The class B (ZU) course and exam which was run last week by Highway Amateur Radio Club, ended successfully with all 8 candidates passing with flying colours. A number of the students achieved 100% in either the regulations or technical parts of the exam with the final marks ranging from 83 - 93%. The highest mark of 93% was achieved by B Ainhirn with 95% for regulations and 90% for technical. The youngest student who passed was 11 year old Jason Phillips with 87%. Jason now holds the callsign of ZU5Z.
Congratulations to the candidates and we wish you many hours in this inspiring hobby.
A special thank you to the SARL, Vee and Rassie for all their assistance in making this possible.
CORRECTION
In last week's bulletin it was mistakenly reported that Shaun Rudling, ZR5S, runs a station on behalf of Highway using the callsign ZS5PMB-4. It should read "on behalf of Midlands Amateur Radio Club”.
CONTEST NEWS
PEARS HF QSO PARTY - LOGS NEEDED
The PEARS HF QSO took place on 9 December, and saw plenty of activity on 40 and 80 meters. Contesters are reminded to please submit their logs, no matter how few contacts you made!! Deadline for logs is 31 December 2007, and NO late submissions will be considered. Logs may be emailed to contest@zs2pe.co.za, sent by snail-mail to PEARS HF CONTEST, PO BOX 5277, WALMER, PORT ELIZABETH 6065, or faxed to 086 601 2305.
Logs have been received from ZS4MP, ZR1AAH, ZS2MR, ZS2OC, ZS4BS, ZS6PJ, ZR5X, ZU2CS and a check log from ZS1CF.
SARL HF FIELD DAY
The results of the second leg of the SARL HF Field Day have been released. Twelve logs were received, made up of ten contest logs and two check logs. The full results have been published in HF Happenings 280.
The results for the second leg are as follows:
1st Sasolburg ARC, ZS4SRK, with 23 170 points [low power, multi-operator];
2nd Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, with 20 514 points [QRP, single operator];
3rd East Rand ARC, ZS6ERB/p4, with 15 252 points [low power, multi operator];
4th Philip Esterhuizen, ZU4PE, with 13 272 [low power, general].
The combined results for the February and November legs are:
1st Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, with 40 260 points;
2nd Sasolburg ARC, ZS4SRK, with 37 894 points;
3rd East Rand ARC, ZS6ERB/p4, with 30 500 points;
4th Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA, with 14 028 points.
Congratulations to the winners. A copy of HF Happenings 280 can be obtained by sending a request to hfcontests@netactive.co.za.
CLUB NEWS
The AWA ( Antique Wireless Association) is pleased to announce the new committee for 2008. The committee is as follows:
President - Rad Handfield-Jones, ZS6RAD;
Treasurer - Willie Axford ,ZS5WI;
Technical Advisor - Don Radford, ZS5DR;
Net Controller - Willem Nel, ZS6ALL;
PRO & Newsletter - Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY.
Long may their valves glow in full power.
PROPAGATION CONDITIONS
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be very low to low. The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet in general. The expected Effective Sun Spot number for the coming week will be less than 5. DX conditions are generally good on the East-West paths and poor in the general Northerly directions.
15 m and 20 m will provide best opportunities for DX. There is a possibility of 15 and 20 m openings towards India from about 14:00 CAT. There may be 20 m openings to Australia from 14:00. From 18:00 there may be short, weak 20 m openings towards Europe. From 18:00 there may be 15 and 20 m openings towards the USA.
For the CW and digital enthusiasts it will also be worth monitoring 10 MHz.
Locally conditions on 40 m is going to be good during the day. 80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings, thunderstorms and static permitting!
Remember that this is only a prediction and that HF always has the capability to surprise you. Who knows, maybe Santa has something in his sock for you, but you will never know unless you switch your rig on, listen and also call CQ.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
7 January 2008 - NARC reopens;
21 January SARL-HMO competition closes;
26 January BACAR meeting at NARC ay 11:00;
31 March - Closing date for first stage of 2008 construction competition.
SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news stories of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners. Submit news stories, if possible, in both English and Afrikaans to www.sarl.org.za/newsinbox.asp not later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.
The SARL also invites you to listen to the programme Amateur Radio Mirror International, on the air every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 590 kHz. For the web stream and Echolink by ZS6FCS visit www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI and follow the links. A repeat transmission can be heard Mondays at 21:00 CAT on 3 215 kHz. Sentech sponsors the ARMI transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.
Today's South African Radio League news bulletin was compiled by Gustav, ZS6BWN.
Thank you for listening. 73.
/EX
