SARL NEWS SUNDAY 16 AUGUST 2009
You are listening to ZS6SRL, the official radio station of the South Afri-can Radio League, the national body for amateur radio in South Africa, with a news bulletin every Sunday at 08:15 CAT in Afrikaans and at 08:30 CAT in English. To listen to a webstream, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI and follow the links for details. PLEASE NOTE: for audio via Echolink, connect to ZS0JPL-R.
You can download this bulletin and previous ones from www.sarl.org.za and subscribe there to receive future bulletins by e-mail.
Your news reader this morning is (name), (call sign), on 145,725 and 7,066 MHz from Pretoria, with relays on 28,325, 14,235, 10,130, 7,066 and 3,695 MHz SSB, as well as 52,750, 438,825 and 1 296 MHz FM in the Pretoria area. (Other newsreaders please change to suit).
In the news today
SARL PRESIDENT’S NET TO LOOK AT YOUTH ACTIVITY
SARL RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION IN CAPE TOWN NEXT SATURDAY
HAMNET REPRESENTED AT GAREC 2009
SPECIAL EVENT STATION FROM TURKEY
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and other important and interesting news items.
SARL PRESIDENT’S NET TO LOOK AT YOUTH ACTIVITY
SARL President Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT, will be joined by Gerhard Coetzee, ZS3TG, on the President's Net this Sunday, 16 August, starting at 19:30 CAT.
To book a link to the telebridge, please send an email to armi@sarl.org.za before noon today. Due to technical reasons at the teleconference centre only Telkom landlines can be connected.
SARL RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION IN CAPE TOWN NEXT SATURDAY
The RTA symposium will be held at the Cape Peninsula University of Technol-ogy next Saturday, 22 August 2009. Registration opens at 08:00, and the symposium starts at 08:45 at the city campus in Tenant Road. The full pro-gramme is available on www.sarl.org.za. The symposia held in Gauteng, Dur-ban and Port Elizabeth in previous years received enthusiastic acclaim from participants.
HAMNET REPRESENTED AT GAREC 2009
The National Director of SARL Hamnet, Francois Botha, ZS6BUU, will be at-tending the annual Global Amateur Radio Emergency Conference – or GAREC, as it is known, in Tokyo, on 24 and 25 August.
Francois will be serving on one of the panels that will discuss issues around the Centre of Activity frequencies, together with Greg Mossop, G0GUD, from the UK. Greg is the IARU Region 1 representative involved with emergency communication. Francois will make two presentations, one on Ham-net's activities and structure in South Africa and the other on IRESC, the worldwide coalition of volunteer communicators. With IRESC members spread right around the globe, help can be provided at all times of the day or night.
GAREC’s agenda features in-depth presentations on the wildfires that wreaked havoc in Australia recently, the earthquakes in China and the one in Italy a few months ago.
SARL HAMNET is attending GAREC at the invitation of Seppo Sisatto, OH1VR. Great news is that the 2011 GAREC conference will be held in South Africa immediately after the IARU conference, which is taking place at Sun City from 12 to 19 August 2011.
The attendance of SARL HAMNET has been made possible by a grant from the Department of Transport.
SPECIAL EVENT STATION TO COMMEMORATE 1999 TURKEY EARTHQUAKE
On 17 August 2009 a Special Event Station with the call sign TC17A will participate in the 10-year memorial event for the tragic earthquake in Tur-key, which occurred in the town and region of Izmit on 17 August 1999. Rep-resentatives of the countries that provided international assistance will attend the event. In recognition of their key role in emergency communica-tions, the Turkish IARU Member Society, TRAC, has been invited to be part of the official programme with a Special Event Station and with two of their emergency communication vehicles.
TC17EQ is expected to operate on 20 and 40 m, primarily on SSB, mostly near the respective Centre of Activity frequencies for emergency communications, and on 30 m on CW and PSK. TC17EQ will start operating on Sunday, 16 Au-gust, at around 16:00 UTC and continue until at least 01:00 UTC on 17 Au-gust. The memorial ceremony is scheduled for 00:02 UTC on 17 August.
NARC CLOSED ON MONDAY
The NARC will be closed on Monday 17 August as our Office Administrator is taken a day's leave. The office will be open again on Tuesday.
LAST CHANCE TO APPLY FOR THE ZS10WCS HIGH DAYS
On Saturday 22 August, a ballot will be held at the Radio Technology in Ac-tion Symposium in Cape Town to select the clubs whose members will put ZS10WCS on the air during the World Cup Soccer. Clubs who want to partici-pate have until Wednesday 19 August to send in their requests. Full details and the date slots are available on the SARL web at www.sarl.org.za, click on News and select Club Talk.
CONTEST NEWS
The SARL HF CW Contest will run on Sunday 30 August from 16:00 to 18:00 CAT on 20, 40 and 80 metres. The exchange is a RST report and a sequential serial number starting at 001. The rules are available in the 2009 SARL Contest Manual.
To date only 30 log submissions have been received for the SARL HF Phone contest, way below the record of 52 set by the SARL Youth Day Sprint. The closing date for logs is midnight on Monday 17 August 2009. Please ensure your log contains the information as requested in paragraph 4 and 5 of the general rules. All logs received will be eligible for the lucky draw of an ARRL Basic Antenna handbook.
CLUB NEWS
The West Rand Amateur Radio Club is holding its next flea market at 12:00 CAT on Saturday 5 September 2009 at the clubhouse in Weltevreden Park, Roo-depoort. Everyone is very welcome. For more information, contact Willem, ZS6WWJ, at 082 890 6775.
At the AGM of the West Rand Amateur Radio Club on 4 July 2009, the follow-ing committee was elected:
Chairman: Joop Hesp, ZS6C
Vice-chairman: Geoff Levey. ZS6GRL
Secretary and Repeater: Phillip van Tonder, ZS6PVT
Treasurer: Craig Woods, ZS6CRW
SARL liaison and PIO: Willem Weideman, ZS6WWJ
Members: Romeo Nardini, ZS6ARQ, Ron Eva, ZR6RON, and John Brook – Anode newsletter.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be very low. The geomagnetic field is expected to be mostly at quiet levels. The expected Effective Sun Spot number for the coming week will be less than 5. The sun has remained blank of sunspots for more than 33 days in a row. Hopefully it will not remain that way for much longer.
20 and 40 m will provide best opportunities for DX. Conditions to the East and the West will be good from the afternoon onwards. During the late af-ternoon and early evenings it will be good towards the North. In the morn-ing it may be possible to make contacts with Australia. Contacts with New-Zealand may be possible on 40 m during the evenings. During the early morn-ings and evenings 40 m contacts may be possible with Brazil. The North Eas-terly, North Westerly, South Easterly and South Westerly paths will be challenging
10 MHz is looking promising late afternoon and after dark for the CW and digital enthusiasts.
The Northern California DX Foundation's international beacon network is mo-nitored at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory, ZS1HMO, and the signal strengths of the received beacons are automatically logged. The graphic re-sults are available at http://spaceweather.hmo.ac.za and are very enligh-tening. Select "Ionospheric Data" and then "HF Propagation Conditions" to see which beacons were recently and not so recently received.
Vincent, ZS6BTY publishes an excellent graphical link reliability predic-tion for all the Ham bands on the Pretoria Amateur Radio Club's website. This prediction is available at www.parc.or.za. Click on the "Propagation" tab.
The best way to defeat the current low solar activity is to improve your antenna setup. Dipole or preferably directional antennas at at least 12 me-tres above ground level are required to ensure that the radiation angle is low enough for long distance propagation. A good antenna system is one of the best investments an amateur can make.
Local conditions are going to be good on 40 m during the day time. 80 m may perform well during the early mornings and late afternoons over the shorter distances, e.g. between ZS5 and ZS6. 30 m may perform well between ZS6 and ZS1.
80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings. Fortunately the static noise levels are low making contacts over the longer distances more plea-sant. Now is the time to start making those contacts for your 80 m "Worked All ZS" award!
Remember that this is only a prediction and that HF has the capability to pleasantly surprise 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
16 August – President’s Net at 19:30;
16-17 August – Special station TC17EQ on the air;
17 August – closing date for HF phone logs;
19 August – closing date for ZS10WCS applications;
22 August - Western Cape RTA;
30 August – SARL HF CW Contest;
5 September – West Rand Flea Market.
SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners. Submit news items, if possible, in both English and Afrikaans only 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 Amateur Radio Mirror Interna-tional programme every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area, with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 570 kHz. There is also a podcast by ZS6RO. For the webstream and Echolink by ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on 'ARMI' and follow the links. A repeat transmis-sion can be heard Mondays at 21:00 CAT on 3 215 kHz. Sentech sponsors the ARMI transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.
You have listened to a bulletin of the South African Radio League, compiled by Dennis, ZS4BS, and edited by Hester van der Walt.
Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX
