SARL NEWS SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2009
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 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 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.
SUMBANDILASAT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED
REPEATER FREQUENCY PLANNING
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and other important and interesting news items.
We start today's SARL News with good wishes to our Jewish listeners who are celebrating their new year this weekend. To our Jewish friends "May you be inscribed for a good year!"
SUMBANDILASAT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED
Third time lucky! SumbandilaSat was successfully launched on 17 September at 17:55:09 CAT (Central African Time) after the launch had to be postponed twice, once due to heavy winds and the second attempt due to the fuel pressure in the feed line which was four times too low and thus caused the fuelling process to take too long to be completed in time for launch.
The satellite was released from the rocket while over the Antarctic and accessed by the ground station at the Stellenbosch University ten minutes later when the first command was sent to "wake up" the satellites. Despite the low elevation orbit of less than 10 degrees SumbandilaSat responded well with its first telemetry. On a pass on Friday morning the SunSpace team confirmed that the transponder, which also carries the amateur radio facility, was operating well.
Earlier in September a team of SunSpace Engineers unpacked the satellite at the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan and carried out a full systems test. All systems performed to specification. The amateur radio payload was tested from a little distance to check radio signal levels. All three systems, the voice beacon, the parrot repeater and the VHF/UHF FM repeater performed flawlessly.
Next, SumbandilaSat was integrated on the launch platform and made ready for launch. Prior to the assembly being transported to the launch platform, the batteries were given their last top-up.
An intensive period of payload qualification will now follow during which each system will be tested. This is expected to take up to 3 months after which the command will shift to the CSIR's Satellite Application Centre at Hartbeeshoek, west of Pretoria.
The voice beacon message was recorded by Anton Coetzee, at the time a learner at the Technical High School Kimberley. His message was selected from entries in a competition to find the best message with which to launch SumbandilaSat. It reads: "This is ZSOSUM in space. I am the voice of the South African youth. We are knocking on the door of opportunity, marking our place in the orbit of space research and communication. Hear us! Listen to us!
Visit www.amsatsa.org.za, listen to the beacon message as well as the first set of Keplerian elements
Once the main payload, a Multi-spectral imager, which has a 6,25 m Ground Sampling Distance (GSD), with 6 spectral bands and is supported by an on-board storage of 24 Giga byte of memory and a main downlink of 72 Mb/s is fully put into service, will a schedule be set up according to which the various experimental payloads on board will be operated. The SA AMSAT web will publish regular updates. Listen on 435,350 during passes over South Africa. At some stage SunSpace will be testing the amateur payload. If early notice is received it will be published on www.amsatsa.org.za.
REPEATER FREQUENCY PLANNING
At the repeater frequency planning meeting held last Saturday Riaan Greeff, ZS4PR, has undertaken to put a working group together to bring all the current information up to date. As part of that process all clubs and repeater co-ordinators are requested to bring the details currently on the SARL web up to date before 30 September. On 30 September the repeater pages on the web will be removed and a process will be started to correlate frequencies and data with licenses. This is step one in the process. More details will be made available on how the process will develop from there. The important point is to bring your repeater information on the SARL web up to date before 30 September.
A process is in place to make contact with clubs and their repeater co-ordinators to resolve any anomalies before any further action will be taken. Your urgent co-operation will be appreciated. For any queries please contact Riaan Greeff by email to riaang@vut.ac.za.
CONTEST NEWS
On Wednesday evening, J B Coetzee, the 3 year old the son of Gerhard, ZS3TG, did the draw for the ARRL Basic Antenna Handbook for the logs submitted for the SARL HF Phone contest. The winning call sign belongs to Geoff Levey, ZS6GRL. Congratulations Geoff.
The first YL Sprint (9 August) brought in eight logs from the beautiful ladies and two logs from the men folk. The sprint was well received and will be on the calendar for 2010. The results are as follows:
1st Rosalie van Loggerenberg, ZR2RL, 140 points [now ZS2DN]
2nd Colette Rundle, ZS2CR, 131 points
3rd Pam Momberg, ZS6APT, 100 points
4th Dawn Snyders, ZS5ME, 62 points
5th Melinda Mynhardt, ZU6MM, 45 points
6th Michelle Harris, ZS4M, 33 points
7th Pauline Hollis, ZS1PLN, 32 points
8th Martin Smith, ZS5M, 14 points
9th Mary Ann Meyer, ZU5MAM, 5 points
Check log:
Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 12 points
ZS4SRK invites everyone to start planning for the September 2009. Support your heritage by activation of Blockhouses, heritage sites or just some historic site where you had lost your glasses! Send your ideas and plans to the ZS4SRK club secretary by e-mail to zs4pr@qsl.net so they can know where to point their 40 m antennas. Both CW and SSB will be on the air. The frequencies to be used for the Heritage Day Sprint on 24 September are 7,000 to 7,025 MHz for CW and 7,060 to 7,100 MHz and 7,130 to 7,200 MHz for phone. Submit logs to The Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club, ZS4SRK, PO Box 28194, Sonlandpark, 1944 or via email to riaanzs4pr@gmail.com. The closing date for log submissions is 6 October 2009.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is still at a minimum. The visible solar disk is void of any sunspots. Solar activity is at some of the lowest levels ever recorded.
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 afternoon and early evenings it will be good towards Europa. In the mornings 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 mornings and evenings 40 m contacts may be possible with Brazil.
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. 30 m will perform well over the longer distances during the middle of the day.
80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
18 to 20 September - SARL VHF/UHF Contests;
19 September - Hamnet Gauteng South and Ekurhuleni DMSCV training exercise;
24 September - Heritage Day sprint;
24 September - Deadline for entries for the October RAE;
6 October - Logs for Heritage Day sprint to be in to riaanzs4pr@gmail.com.
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 International 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 transmission 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 Roger, ZR3RC, and edited by George, ZS6NE.
Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX
