SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 16 AUGUST 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 may tune into the South African Radio League news bulletin on Sunday mornings at 08 hours 15 SAST in Afrikaans and at 08 hours 30 SAST in English on HF and on many VHF and UHF repeaters around the country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay. A podcast is available from the League web site.

This audio bulletin may be downloaded from the League 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.

IN THE NEWS TODAY

SARL HF DIGITAL CONTEST THIS AFTERNOON
ANTENNA DEFENCE FUND INITIATIVE MAKING HEADWAY
LONG DISTANCE RADIO SIGNALS
TIME TO REGISTER FOR THE RAE IS RUNNING OUT

** This afternoon from 13hours to 16 hours 30 UTC you may participate in the HF Digital contest with PSK and RTTY activity from 3 580 to 3 600 kHz; 7 040 to 7 060 kHz and 14 070 to 14 099 kHz. You may participate as a Single Operator Single Band, a Single Operator All Band; a Multi Operator Single Band or a Multi Operator All Band station. The exchange is a RST report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. Digital contacts count 2 points. Count two points for each call area on each band and count 2 points for each station contacted on all three bands. Log sheets must be submitted in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format by midnight 23 August 2015 by e-mail to zs4bfn@gmail.com. Please do not submit your log as a jpg, png or PDF file! Consult the 2015 Blue Book for the rules.


** The recently constituted SARL Antenna Defense Fund Initiative sub-committee met this week with the deputy chairman of the South African Local Government Association, Councilor MphoNawa, at the Council Chambers of the West Rand District Municipality. CouncilorNawa is also the Executive Mayor of the West Rand District Municipality.

The committee made a presentation on various important aspects of Amateur Radio and in particular on how Radio Amateurs support disaster and community communication. The SARL delegation also highlighted the problems Radio Amateurs experience in erecting antenna structures in residential zoned areas. CouncilorNawa said he understood the restrictions created for Radio Amateurs by the zoning regulations and said that he would raise the issue with the Minister of Cooperative Governance, PravinGordhan at their next meeting that was to take place on 13 August 2015. He also said that he would propose to the Minister that the issue be placed on the agenda of their next meeting and that the SARL be invited to make a presentation in this regard.
SARL President, Fritz Sutherland, ZS6SF expressed his appreciation to CouncilorNawa and said that this was an important step forward for the SARL and Amateur Radio.

** Booking for ARiA 2015 at the National Amateur Radio Centre will be held on Saturday 22 August 2015. Amateur Radio in Action 2015, the new name for Radio Technology in Action, features a variety of interesting presentations and demonstrations. Order the frequency counter kit and take delivery at the symposium. SARL's technical Manager, FrikWolff will in his presentation take you through the steps on how to construct it.

Other presentations include building an inverted V, What's up with Kletskous, installing a radio in your vehicle, how space weather can affect you and much more. The full details are on the SARL web at www.sarl.org.za and from there you can get the full program and registration form. Do it today

** NASA's spacecraft Voyager 1 has entered interstellar space and is now 19,65 billion kilometers from planet Earth. The deep space network run by NASA is located at three sites around the world, they are: at Goldstone, near Barstow, California, USA, near Madrid, Spain, and near Canberra, Australia. The Uplink is on 2,114 GHz and the downlinks are on 2,296 GHz and 8,415 GHz. It takes 18 hours for a signal from Earth to reach Voyager 1 and another 18 hours to receive a reply. In other words it will take 36 hours to complete an over.

** There are only two and a half weeks left for candidates for the RAE to register. Registrations close at midnight on 3 September 2015. All registrations must be done on the electronic RAE registration system. Invigilators and candidates are reminded to use the RAE system to upload the following documents.
Copy of their identification document
ICASA signature document
Proof of payment
Non South African residence need to provide proof of residence.

The RAE fees include the following:
ICASA application fee
First year or part there of your radio amateur license fee
Free membership of the SARL for current year.

** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:

ZSL1167: Aadil Lagardien
ZSL1168: Gavin Howard Badenhorst

Any objections to the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after the bulletin.


** The Middelburg club (ZS6OTL) is going to set up a field station at Buffalo Gorge in Middelburg, Mpumalanga and will talk under the call sign ZS6OTL on HF from 08:00 on 40metres - 7080Mhz till the band closes.


** The Westrand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 29 August 2015 at their clubhouse in KrotonStreet, Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. For more information contact Johan ZS6JVV 082 558 5811.

** Provisional results of the South African Radio League HF Phone contest. The contest committee received 34 logs for the HF phone held on Sunday 2 August. There were no multi-operator stations.

1st Hans Kappetijn, ZS6KR, 144 points
2nd Romeo Nardini, ZS6ARQ, 137 points
3rd Pam Momberg, ZS6APT, 132 points

The highest score on a single band
1st Hans Kappetijn, ZS6KR, 106 points on 40 m
2nd Romeo Nardini, ZS6ARQ, 100 points on 40 m

Club Competition

1st Pretoria ARC, 402 points
2nd West Rand ARC, 351 points
3rd Bloemfontein ARC, 163 points
4th Centurion ARC, 155 points

Congratulations to all the winners, the full results are published in the HF Happenings newsletter

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. New sunspot AR2400 is growing slowly but is otherwise stable.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 25.

The 20 to 15 metre 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
16 August - International Lighthouse and Lightship weekend.
And also today 15 August the HF Digital contest between 13 and 16 hours 30UTC
22 August - HAMRADIO Africa.
29 August - West Rand Amateur radio club flea market
30 August - SARL HFCW Contest.


To end the bulletin here is a short snippet of the main story: This afternoon from 13hours to 16 hours 30 UTC you may participate in the HF Digital contest with PSK and RTTY activity from 3 580 to 3 600 kHz; 7 040 to 7 060 kHz and 14 070 to 14 099 kHz

With that we have come to the end of this week's bulletin


** Clubs and individuals are invited to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, if possible, in both English and Afrikaans, by following the news inbox link on the South African Radio League web page. News items for inclusion in the bulletin should reach the news team no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.

You are welcome to join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio program 'Amateur Radio Today' at 10 hours SAST. The program 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 hours 30 local 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 transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

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

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

73,and thank you for listening

/EX