SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
SARL NEWS SUNDAY 07 OCTOBER 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.
This, and previous bulletins, can be downloaded from the www.sarl.org.za. You can also read or download previous bulletins from there and subscribe to receive future bulletins by email.
Your news reader this morning is Hans, ZS6KR, on 145,725 and 7,066 MHz from Pretoria with relays on 3,695, 10,135, and 51,400 MHz as well as 438,825 and 1 297 MHz in the Pretoria area. (Other newsreaders please change to suit).
SILENT KEYS
The Pretoria Amateur Radio Club regrets to announce that Don Blackburn, ZS6CRT, became a silent key on Tuesday after a valiant battle with cancer. Don was a past chairman of the club.
Our sincere condolences to his wife Sue, ZS6SUE, and his children Jonathan ZR6JON and Samantha.
The key of Peter Finlay, ZS5ADN, became silent on 23 September after a long illness. To his family and friends, our sincerest condolences.
Sharief Osman, ZS1SSB, affectionately known as Ozzy, passed away at the age of 42 on the 22 September 2007. our sincerest condolences to his wife Amina, 3 young children, other relatives and friends.
(PAUSE)
In the news today:
2008 SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION - A FEAST OF AMATEUR RADIO
INTECNET AND PRESIDENT’S NET TONIGHT
EXPANSION OF 40 METRE BAND
DRAFT POWERLINE REGULATION PROCESS CONTINUES
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and other important and interesting news items.
2008 SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION - A FEAST OF AMATEUR RADIO
The SARL National convention will be held in Bloemfontein from 11 to 13 April 2008 and promises to be a weekend of amateur radio activity South Africa has not seen for many years. The weekend will be hosted by the Bloemfontein Amateur Radio Club and will include a visit to the Boyden Observatory on the Friday evening. The Annual General Meeting will be held on the Saturday morning followed by an ARDF demonstration Hunt and various technical session covering HF, VHF and Hamnet.
Visits to the Leeuwberg museum and Onse Rust will be arranged with the Gala Awards Dinner at the Commando Restaurant. The weekend will be concluded with breakfast with a view at the ZS9X Contest station on Sunday morning.
The organising committee is working with SA Airlink to provide special travel and accommodation packages. Diarise the date now and stay tuned. Information will be available on the web soon.
INTECNET AND PRESIDENT’S NET TONIGHT
The President’s net will be held this evening, 7 October, starting at 19:00 and will be followed by the Intecnet.
SARL President, Graham Hartlett, will talk about plans for the 2008 AGM and nominations for Council which are due soon. He will also discuss the procedure for affiliated clubs to offer the class B examination for their students. The full examination procedure and the necessary application forms will be available on the member pages of the web after his presentation.
The Intecnet will feature a discussion on the HMO/SARL 40 metre beacon programme led by Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell of the HMO. John Willescroft, ZS6EF, who is constructing the beacon equipment will discuss the design and operational issues. A PowerPoint presentation is available on the web at www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI.
Clubs wishing to link their repeaters should send details of the telephone number to armi@sarl.org.za by noon today.
EXPANSION OF 40 METRE BAND
The SARL receives regular questions from amateurs about the expansion of the 40 metre band. The issue is on the top of the Agenda in our interaction with ICASA. There are however several problems to be overcome. One is that South Africa's signal distributor, Sentech, is still using that segment and will have to relocate to higher in the band. The SARL is in discussion with Sentech. In terms of the ITU agreement they have the right to continue using the spectrum till 2009.
HAVE YOU PAID YOUR SUBSCRIPTION?
Invoices were mailed in June, with follow-up reminders in August and September. If you have not yet renewed your membership, please do it as soon as possible. Members who have not remitted their dues by the end of October will no longer receive Radio ZS or have access to the member-only section of the SARL web. Your membership is important for Amateur Radio; it is our collective voice through the SARL, the national Body for Amateur Radio, which needs to be strong and representative. Your membership makes that difference. If you are not a member yet, it is never too late to join. Application forms are available on www.sarl.org.za.
DRAFT POWERLINE REGULATION PROCESS CONTINUES
At the SABS TC80 meeting on Thursday ICASA informed the committee that the draft regulations for PLT, Power Line Telecommunications, will be tabled for discussion at the Standards Liaison Committee this coming Thursday. The SARL was part of the drafting of the interim regulations and made several demands that for example all amateur HF bands are permanently notched. The SARL's position was noted but in the final draft to be discussed by the SLC no notching was included. Positive aspects of the draft regulations are the inclusion of an interference mitigation process and the requirement that a public accessible data base of PLT installations be maintained. PLT vendors must also give notice of planned installations.
The SARL made further representation to ICASA that International experience has shown that interference standards based on FCC limits are inadequate and will lead to unnecessary mitigation processes. A recent report from the ARRL laboratory pointing out the inadequacy of the FCC standards was also submitted.
At the TC80 meeting several additional problems were highlighted which will be discussed by the Chairman of the TC80 workgroup on EMC at the SLC meeting which he has been invited to attend.
After the final draft is agreed at the SLC, the draft regulations will be published in the Government Gazette for comment. The SARL is preparing its comment based on current known aspects of the draft regulation and will fine tune its objections once the final draft has been published. It is expected that the SARL will also attend public hearings.
AMATEUR RADIO DIRECTION FINDING — SARL RECOMMENDS THE 80 m APPROACH FOR NOW
At last week's Council meeting the future participation of South Africa in the ARDF — Amateur Radio Direction Finding competitions held annually by the IARU in Europe was discussed. On recommendation of the IARU ARDF committee chairman, Reinhardt Floesser, it was decided to first tackle ARDF on 80 metres. The reason for this is that on 2 metres too many reflections occur which for the newcomer presents problems in a multi transmitter competition which is the IARU standard. Later on 2 m ARDF will be added. The international competitions are presented in two categories, HF and VHF.
The SARL is studying the various circuits and kits available and would welcome input from clubs and individuals. Please send your comments to zs4bs@netactive.co.za. An Intecnet with Rhynhardt Floesser is being planned for 25 November.
JOTA AND JOTI 20 TO 21 OCTOBER
Dave Gemmell, ZS6AAW, SA National JOTA Co-ordinator makes it known that Jamboree-on-the-Air, JOTA, and Jamboree-on-the-Internet, JOTI, will take place on 20 and 21 October.
Many thanks to Evan Davies, ZS6EVD, Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, and Lichtenburg ARC who planned, and will be operating as, ZS50MAF, in Mafikeng.
This year's is the 50th JOTA and 11th JOTI and it's not too late to arrange a JOTA station which can be put together in an hour or two!
If you had not been approached by scouts, invite them for a day or week-end to do experiments with antennas and contact local and overseas JOTA stations. Introduce them to different modes such as , CW, RTTY PSK 31, ECHOLINK, Skype, etc. from your club house, home or where ever.
Remember, register your station as an educational station with the SARL at least 7 days before the main event so that your unlicenced guests may also use your transmitting equipment under your guidance and derive maximum enjoyment from the event. Forms for this purpose are available on www.sarl.org
More international info. can be found on www.jota.org or www.jotajoti.org
SPRING QRP SPRINT RESULTS
Nine logs were received for the Spring QRP Sprint held on Sunday 9 September, 4 in the 5 watt class and 5 in the 1 watt class. The results are as follows
5 Watts:
1st Vidi, ZS1EL 2 992 points;
2nd Ruaan, ZS6RMS 1 600 points;
3rd Oakdale ARC, ZS1OAK 1 540 points;
4th Allen, ZR1AAH 864 points.
1 Watt:
1st Jan, ZS4JAN 15 120 points;
2nd Andre, ZS2ACP 12 960 points;
3rd Pam, ZS6APT 3 960 points;
4th Pierre, ZS6BQS 2 520 points;
5th Franz, ZS6EU 640 points.
Congratulations to the winners.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be at very low levels. The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet in general increasing to unsettled levels on 17 till 19 October. The expected Effective Sun Spot number for the coming week will be less than 5. Fortunately with the arrival of summer DX conditions are also warming up a bit.
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 10:00 CAT. There may be 20 m openings to Australia from about 06:00. From 16:00 there may be 15 and 20 m openings towards Europe. From 18:00 there may be 15 and 80 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 and even 30 m may perform well over the longer distances.
It is once again time to work towards your 80 m WAZS award in the evenings. Remember that this is only a prediction and that HF always has the capability to surprise you. You will never know what you are missing unless you switch your rig on, listen and also call CQ.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
7 October, tonight – President’s Net and Intechnet;
18 October - Class A RAE;
20 October – Comments on SARL 2008 Competition Handbook to be in;
20 and 21 october – JOTA and JOTI;
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 George, ZS6NE, and transmitted by (your name and call sign).
Thank you for listening. 73.
/EX
