SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 29 MAY 2016

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 in to the South African Radio League news bulletin on Sunday mornings, at 08:15 Local Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 Local Time in English, on HF as well as on many VHF and UHF repeaters around our country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay.

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

IN THE NEWS TODAY:

THE SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE HALL OF FAME

RAE NEWS

SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE DIGITAL CONTEST THIS AFTERNOON

THE NEW IARU REGION 1 HF BAND PLAN

TRANSATLANTIC TESTS ON 144 MHz

THE VHF LOOP ANTENNA

WESTRAND AMATEUR RADIO FLEA MARKET

PEARS AGM

HF PROPAGATION REPORT

UPCOMING EVENTS

** The South African Radio League Hall of Fame recognises South African licenced radio amateurs who have contributed significantly to amateur radio. Its purpose is to recognise lasting contributions to the development of amateur radio and to preserve its history in South Africa. An initial group of inductees was inducted at the 2016 South African Radio League National Convention.

The first inductees are Brian Austin, G0GSF (ex ZS6BKW), Mike Bosch, ZS2FM, Chris Burger, ZS6EZ, Iris Hayes, ZS2AA (SK), Gary Immelman, ZS6YI, Tjerk Lammers, ZS6P, Dave Larsen, ZS6DN (SK), John Streeter, ZS1W (SK) and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV. Congratulations!

** The results of the May 2016 RAE was published on the SARL website on Thursday 26 May 2016. Congratulations to all the new Radio Amateurs. May you find a lot of enjoyment from this wonderful hobby of ours.

** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:
ZS6AEV Robert Hooper (renewal)
ZSL1170 Werner Christo Venter

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 1761 plus 48 affiliated clubs.

** The June issue of Radio ZS will be available for download on Monday 30 May 2016 from the League web site. André, ZS2ACP, shows you how to convert a CB Radio as a General Coverage Receiver while Pravin, ZS5LT, tells you how to use the cold toner transfer method for circuit boards. Viv, ZS6VD, explains how you can build a digital clock and temperature meter for your shack and the Sasolburg Radio Club gives us feedback on the 2016 SARL National Convention and the role Hamnet played.

Read about the awards presented at the Gala Dinner and the inductees to the SARL Hall of Fame. Ivo, PA1IVO, has a multi-purpose portable setup to work low earth orbit satellites, Rikus, ZS4A, tells us about his first EME QSO and James, KH2SR, reviews the KN-Q7A SSB 20 m QRP transceiver kit.

The editor notes that only 376 copies of the May 2016 issue of Radio ZS were downloaded.

The theme for the July 2016 issue of Radio ZS is young people in amateur radio. Young people and those involved with young people are invited to submit photographs and articles for this issue. Send it to radiozs@sarl.org.za by Tuesday 21 June 2016.

** The Ray Webber, ZS6RSW, VHF/UHF Trophy was awarded to Carl Minnie, ZS6CBQ, and the Tinus Lange 7066 Technical Excellence Award went to Kevin McDonald. These two awards were left out of the news item last Sunday.

** The second leg of the South African Radio League Digital Contest is on the air this afternoon from 13:00 to 16:00 UTC with PSK and RTTY activity between 14 070 to 14 099 kHz; 7 040 to 7 060 kHz and 3 580 to 3 600 kHz. A station may be contacted twice on each band once on RTTY, once on PSK31. The exchange is a RST report and a sequential serial number starting at 001. Logs, in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled "your call sign Digital Contest" must be submitted by 5 June by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za. Please consult the 2016 Blue Book for the scoring and multiplier information.

** The new IARU Region 1 HF Band Plan comes into effect on 1 June 2016. Changes were made to the band plan during discussions at the Region 1 Interim Meeting held in Vienna in April 2016. The recommendations from this meeting were approved at the Region 1 EC meeting in Brussels in May and became interim Region 1 Policy until the General Conference in September 2017.

The two main items are the introduction of a Digimode segment at 3 570 kHz - 3 580 kHz with a maximum bandwidth of 200 Hz and a Digimode segment with maximum bandwidth of 500 Hz extended from 10 130 kHz to 10 150 kHz.

The band plan is available from the League web site at www.sarl.org.za

** Marcos Turbo, PY1MHZ, at Rio de Janeiro reports that he will be on vacation in August for 30 days and in January 30 days more. He will make transatlantic attempts near the sea from GG98ma, and is working on a new rope Yagi antenna. He is currently monitoring the V51VHF beacon as well as fellow Pieter V51PJ on 144 MHz JT65b using 2x12 LFA Yagis. Marcos is also running a beacon from his home QTH in Rio de Janeiro GG98ic: PY1ESP/b on 144,290 MHz CW and horizontally polarized. Keep a lookout for it.

** IF YOU ARE STUCK WITH A VERTICAL ANTENNA, THEN ADD A HORIZONTAL LOOP

Many Hams who are townhouse dwellers are often restricted to a vertical antenna on 144 MHz and limited to repeater and mobile operation. RCA has proven many years ago that horizontal VHF radio waves travel much further and with less loss over the curvature of the Earth than vertical waves. So if you could mount a small loop antenna at the bottom of your vertical, then you could really extend the range of your 2 metre activity and make the best of both polarizations.

All the long distance ZR/ZS stations including the VHF DX are all horizontally polarized and located at the bottom end of the 144 MHz band as well as all the beacons. A small loop antenna with a diameter of about 30 centimetres and fed with a gamma match could be mounted on the side of your metal mast. Alternatively, if your vertical is mounted on a length of PVC pipe above a metal mast, then the loop can be located around this pipe and will look less conspicuous. Full details of VHF loop antennas are available on the Internet or Amateur Radio Handbooks. You could stack two loop antennas above each other and realize a gain of 3 dBd or 5,15 dBi in all directions on 144 MHz.

** The Westrand Amateur Radio Club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 04 June 2016 at their clubhouse in Kroton Street, Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. For more information contact Johan, ZS6JVV, on 082 558 5811.

** The PEARS AGM was held on Saturday 21 May at the normal club venue. The committee remains largely the same as last year with Chris Scarr, ZS2AAW as Chairman and Tony Allen, ZR2TX as Vice chairman. Some new members were added to the committee: Mandy La Mude (ZS2AV), Andrew Gray (ZS2G), and Dave Higgs (ZS2DH). Eric Hosten (ZS2ECH) takes over the role of editor for the QSX magazine.

GOTA
PEARS would like to congratulate all those who passed the recent RAE and specifically those from Port Elizabeth. Congratulations to Donovan (ZS2DL) who gave the classes.

The East Cape Hamnet team organised a portable station to operate on Saturday 28th and invited all the new PE hams and other interested parties to join them and get some "airtime" with their new callsigns. Future similar activities are also planned.

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. All the visible sunspots are currently stable with very little chance for serious solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 22.

The 20 to 15 m bands will provide lots DX fun.

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

** Let’s look at some upcoming events:

29 May – South African Radio League Digital Contest
4 June – Westrand Amateur Radio Flea Market
12 June – ZS6 Hammies Sprint
17 June – World QRP Day
23 June – South African Radio League Top Band QSO Party

** To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item: The South African Radio League Hall of Fame recognises South African licenced radio amateurs who have contributed significantly to amateur radio. Its purpose is to recognise lasting contributions to the development of amateur radio and to preserve its history in South Africa. An initial group of inductees was inducted at the 2016 South African Radio League National Convention.

And that brings us to the end of this 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 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 pod cast 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; please 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 Emile Venter, ZS6V, edited by Brian Utterson, ZS6AE, and read by ..............

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

/EX