SARL NEWS – SUNDAY 27 DECEMBER 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 web-stream, 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 newsreader 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:
NO ICASA ACCOUNT TILL MID JANUARY 2010
SUMBANDILASAT AMATEUR PAYLOAD ACTIVE OVER THE HOLIDAY PERIOD
TAKE PART IN AN HF AUDIO ART EXPERIMENT
VOYAGER MAKES AN INTERSTELLAR DISCOVERY
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and other important and interesting news items.
NO ICASA ACCOUNT TILL MID JANUARY 2010
ICASA confirmed that renewals for licenses will only be mailed during the second week in January. Although accounts are payable before 31 January each year, ICASA said it will not take action until the end of February.
The fee for an amateur radio license for 2010 will remain at R27.
If you insist in paying the 2010 fee before receiving an invoice, please ensure that your callsign and license number is stated in the electronic or post office payment. Every year ICASA receives payments which cannot be allocated to the correct account as this vital information is not submitted with the payment.
SUMBANDILASAT AMATEUR PAYLOAD ACTIVE OVER THE HOLIDAY PERIOD
SumbandilaSat, SO67's amateur radio payload, will be available on many daylight passes over the next few days. Get all the details from www.amsatsa.org.za.
TAKE PART IN AN HF AUDIO ART EXPERIMENT
Kapwani Kiwanga, a Canadian artist who works primarily with sound and vision invites radio amateurs with good HF capabilities to take part in an audio art project on 20 metres.
Kapwani will transmit a message on 20 metres from Eindhoven, the Netherlands, to territories that have a historic link with Holland, namely: Surinam, Indonesia, and South Africa. Participants in these countries are asked to re-transmit the received message back to him in Eindhoven. Kapwani will transmit it back to and so on and so on. This ping-pong effect will increasingly distort the message finally resulting in an abstract artistic sound recording.
She has created an original sound piece based on archives of 1940’s Dutch programming found at Radio Netherlands. Her sound creation will include some Morse code and sound recordings. It will not be "music" in the conventional sense. This message will not be political or offensive in nature. The duration will be approximately three minutes.
Kapwani would like to get started as soon as possible. If you would like to take part in the project, send Kapwani a mail to kiwangakap@hotmail.com or call her on 0031 617 638 920. Copy SARL News at armi@sarl.org.za, we would like to keep track of the experiment.
Kapwani recently was invited as an artist in residence at MU in Eindhoven.
VOYAGER MAKES AN INTERSTELLAR DISCOVERY
The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the 24 December issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.
Using data from Voyager scientists have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system. This magnetic field holds the interstellar cloud together and solves the long-standing puzzle of how it can exist at all.
What are the implications? It could increase radiation and ultimately affect the weather on earth. The time frame is a few million years. Nothing we should concern ourselves about now. It however make interesting reading. Listen to the full story by Dr Tony Philips of Science at NASA on Amateur Radio Mirror International today. For times and frequencies visit www.sarl.org.za, click on publications and select ARMI.
CONTEST NEWS
The combined results for the February and November legs of the SARL HF Field Day have been published in HF Happenings 385 and are available on the SARL website. Here is a summary:
High Power
1st Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA, 30 488 points, Multi-operator field station;
2nd Cape Town ARS, ZS1CT, 19 944 points, Multi-operator field station;
3rd Zululand ARC, ZS5ZLB, 19 542 points, Multi-operator field station.
Low Power
1st West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 142 024 points, Multi-operator field station;
2nd Boland ARC, ZS1TB, 132 240 points, Multi-operator field station;
3rd Sandton ARC, ZS6STN, 75 952 points, Multi-operator field station.
QRP
1st Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 208 812 points, Single operator field station;
2nd Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT, 78 954 points, General station;
3rd Pierre van Deventer, ZS6BB, 38 052 points, Single operator field station.
Well done and congratulations to the winners.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is still at low levels. During the week there were two sunspot regions visible. On Tuesday sunspot 1 036 erupted, producing a solar flare that packed as much energy as a million megatons of TNT. The effective sunspot number is expected to be between ten and fifteen for the coming week. Overall conditions are on the rise.
20 and 15 m will provide the best opportunities for DX. Conditions to India will be good from the afternoons onwards. During the late afternoons and early evenings it will be moderate towards Europa. In the afternoons there are good possibilities for contacts with the USA on 15 m. Contacts with New-Zealand will be possible for a short periods on 15 m during the mornings. Contacts with Australia will be possible on 20 m during the afternoons. During the afternoons and evenings 20 and 15 m contacts may also 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. With summer here 20 m is also once again very useful for contacts over the longer distances, especially during the mornings.
80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
1 January - Final date to apply to do polar weather research at SANAE for the HMO, obtain information from info@hmo.ac.za;
1 January - Straight key night on OSCARs;
15 to 17 January 2010 – the PEARS VHF/UHF Contest;
23 January - Home Construction course in Cape Town;
31 January – President’s net at 19:30;
28 February – New closing date for the Sumbandilasat essay competition;
28 February – Final date for entries in the ARRISSSAT project to be submitted to youth@sarl.org.za.
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 Amateur Radio Mirror International every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria-area, with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 860 kHz. There is also a podcast by ZS6RO. For a web-stream and Echolink by ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on 'ARMI' and follow the links. A repeat transmission can be heard on 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 George, ZS6NE.
From SARL News we wish you a prosperous 2010, may amateur radio grow from strength to strength.
Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX
