SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 30 NOVEMBER 2014
Good morning and welcome! You are tuned to a news broadcast of the South African Radio League read by ................................................................................ (name, call sign and QTH).
You can tune to the South African Radio League news broadcast 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 South African Radio League web site.
This audio bulletin can be downloaded from the South African Radio League website at www.sarl.org.za. You can find this bulletin and previous bulletins in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the webpage. While you are there, you can sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.
** We start this mornings news bulletin with a silent key.
It is with deep regret that the South African Radio League has to announce the passing of Malcolm Ian Mackenzie, ZS5ACV, who passed away on 23 November.
We express our sincerest condolences to his son Calum Mckenzie who resides in New Zealand and his family and friends.
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IN THE NEWS TODAY
South African Radio League CELEBRATES 90 YEARS
EXCHAT a NEW DIGITAL MODE APPLICATION
UPDATING OF REPEATER INFORMATION VERY POSITIVE
And
ENJOY THE LAST DIGITAL COMPETITION FOR THIS YEAR
** From 1 January 2015, the special call sign ZS90SARL will be celebrating the 90th anniversary of the South African Radio League. The South African Radio Relay League was formed in May 1925. The name was later changed to the South African Radio League. From January until the culminations of the celebration at the annual Convention in Bloemfontein in April, Amateur Radio Today will transmit a weekly highlighting the amazing events of the past 90 years.
In addition, the South African Radio League has been given a special call sign by ICASA to celebrate the anniversary. The call sign is ZS90SARL. It is available to all affiliated clubs on a rotation bases for period on one week (Monday to Sunday). Applications for use of the call sign will be open from Monday and should be sent by email to SARL90@sarl.org.za. Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT, will coordinate the allocation and from time to time, a schedule will be published on the South African Radio League web.
Clubs applying for the use of the call sign must clearly indicate times and frequency of operation. Logs must be kept electronically, preferably in the N1MM format and forwarded at the end of the week to contest@sarl.org.za for uploading to Logbook of the World. Special QSL card are being designed and soon be available.
To book a week or more for your club to operate ZS90SARL, send an e-mail to ZS90@sarl.org.za, Please gave a few alternative weeks.
** New Digital Mode Application - EXChat. Con Wassilieff, ZL2AFP, has developed a sentence-mode radio chat system that works like cell phone texting! This is a computer program for Amateur Radio transmission and reception using a computer and radio transceiver. The program equips your computer with a one sentence at a time chat-mode for operation on the HF bands. You use it in the same way as you would Skype or cell phone texting. This facilitates rapid-fire QSOs and especially makes nets easier.
As usual, sound card techniques are used to generate transmissions using tones at audio frequency and to receive and decode the incoming signals at audio frequency. An SSB transceiver translates these signals to and from the HF amateur bands.
The EXChat mode is a development of DominoEX, and is completely compatible with other DominoEX versions. In fact, operators without EXChat, but who have another version of DominoEX, can take part in a QSO, if in a slightly clumsy manner. What is different about EXChat is that it operates in Sentence Mode.
Read more about EXChat and download it from www.qsl.net/zl1bpu/MFSK/EXChat.htm
** Here is your chance to get a young person hooked to amateur radio. As announced in last week's SARL News, for the entire month of December, stations in several countries will be on the air seeking contacts with young amateurs using "YOTA" as their call sign suffix.
To date a total of 35 call signs have been registered for the event, including ZS9YOTA,. YOTA stations will be seeking to make many contacts, so use this opportunity to connect young amateurs in their teens and 20s with their peers on the air world wide
The South African Radio League has been granted a special call sign, ZS9YOTA, to be used by young amateurs during YOTA month from 1 to 31 December 2014. Please note that the ZS9YOTA callsign is used primarily to put Youngsters on the Air. IARU Region 1 defines youngsters as people under 26.
If you are 25 years old or younger, you are invited to apply to use the special call sign either as an individual or as a club station operated by young people. Send your request to Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL at zs6ql@mweb.co.za. Give up your twitter, Whats App and facebook time and experience some real and greet communication
Slots will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Allocated slots will be shown on www.hamradio.org.za where you will find more detailed information and lots of other interesting information about YOTA 2014. When returning your ZS9YOTA log, include a photograph of yourself or group operating your station, in order to place it on the ZS9YOTA webpages.
Clubs are encouraged to participate in this event and to make use of this opportunity to get young amateurs together and use the ZS9YOTA call sign during December.
AN ADDITIONAL BONUS. If you apply for the use of the ZS9YOTA callsign and a young amateur sends in a log with at least 10 contacts the greatest of all amateur radio
handbooks will be awaiting a lucky winner. In January all logs will be entered into a lucky draw and the winner will receive the 2015 bible of Amateur Radio, the ARRL Handbook 2015 hard cover edition.
You are tuned to a bulletin of the South African Radio League
** An application for membership of the South African Radio League has been received from Francois Joubert, ZSL1128.
Any objections against the acceptance of the application must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.
Membership of the South African Radio League currently stands at 1 592 plus 35 affiliated clubs.
** Repeater information updated. the South African Radio League is pleased with the response from clubs following the request about two weeks ago to check repeater information on the web site, and to bring it up to date. Currently, there are only a few entries where the license number is still indicated as "Temporary. Clubs that have not yet responded are requested to bring the information up to date by Friday, December 5th, or to indicate whether the repeater should still be indicated as "Temporary". For a list of repeaters that still need to be updated, visit the front page of the South African Radio League website.
** The last South African Radio League contest for the year takes place on Sunday 7 December from 13:00 UTC to 16:00 UTC. This is the third leg of the South African Radio League Digital Contest with PSK31 and RTTY operation on 20, 40 and 80 metres. A station may be contacted twice on each band, once on RTTY and once on PSK31.
The exchange is a RST report plus a sequential serial number starting at 001. Contacts with stations in Southern Africa are worth 3 points and contacts with stations outside Southern Africa are worth 1 point. Logs shall be submitted by 14 December 2014 to contest@sarl.org.za. Read the rules on page 40 of the Contest Manual for the multipliers and final scoring detail
** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity will at low levels. Active regions 2217, 2219 and 2222 have complex magnetic configurations and may produce M-class solar flares. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 73.
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 upcoming events
1 to 31 December Youth on the Air with ZS9YOTA
1 December closing date for updating the South African Radio League unmanned devices database
7 December the South African Radio League digital contest
13 and 14 December - ARRL 10 meter contest
15 December input to the South African Radio League on the national integrated ICT policy discussion document
To end this bulletin, a quick recap of the leading story:
** You are invited to submit news items of interest to the South African Radio League by following the news inbox link on the South African Radio League webpage. News items for inclusion in the bulletin, should reach the news team no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.
You may join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine program Amateur Radio Today at 10:00 Central African Time. The programme may 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 by Dick, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast may be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African Time on 4 895 kHz AM. We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; send it in an e-mail to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the radio transmissions on the non-amateur frequency bands.
You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Johann, ZS6PSS, edited by Dawie Conradie and read by
.
Thank you for listening, and from the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead, 73s
/EX
