SARL NEWS - SUNDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2011
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 also 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 7,066 and 3,695 MHz SSB.
In the news today
NEW REGULATIONS
ALLOCATION OF ZS9 CALL SIGNS
TONY REUMERMAN BURSARY AWARDED
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more details on these and other important and interesting news items.
NEW REGULATIONS
The ICASA board reviewed the revised draft regulations. This followed after a public hearing held in early December where the SARL made a lengthy and detailed presentation about the concerns of the Amateur Radio Community. The SARL understands that a further draft for comment will be published in the Government Gazette in the next two weeks. This time ICASA will not hold public hearings but only invite written comment. The SARL will keep a watching brief and make the second draft available as soon as it has been published in the Government Gazette.
ALLOCATION OF ZS9 CALL SIGNS
When the original request was made to ICASA to issue ZS9 calls, the proposal by a group of radio amateurs who had formed a contest group, was based there-on that ZS9 call signs would only be allocated to a club for contesting purposes. Of late individual radio amateurs are now applying for ZS9 call signs for their own general use. ICASA is now looking at setting guidelines that will determine the conditions under which ZS9 call signs will be issued. The item is on the Agenda of the ICASA/SARL liaison meeting to be held on 25 February 2011.
One option would be to reserve ZS9 call signs for special event contest stations allocated on an event by event basis. If the ZS9 prefix is allocated to individual amateurs it will lose its special significance. Your comments are invited. Send it to armi@sarl.org.za before 18 February 2011 to afford the Council of the SARL to take your views into consideration before tabling the SARL views to ICASA at the liaison meeting. Please keep your comments concise and to the point.
TONY REUMERMAN BURSARY AWARDED
The South African Amateur Radio Development Trust has awarded the Tony Reumerman Bursary for young people to study for the class A Radio Amateur Examination to Dirk Johan van Vuuren of Krugersdorp.
The bursary of R1 000 is intended to pay for the examination fees, one year membership of the SARL as a student member, course fees and other study material.
The Tony Reumerman bursary was recently established in recognition of the contribution Tony made to technology development in Amateur Radio. He and his family have donated R20 000, which is being invested, and the interest will be used to finance the bursary.
The Trust has made two more bursaries available. It is however ironic that at club level it is so often said that young people cannot afford the examination and course fees, yet when the Trust announced that bursaries for the May examination were available for young people under 25, only one application was received. For more details about class A RAE bursaries visit www.amateurradio.org.za.
KLETSkous – more details released
SA AMSAT has released a further document setting out details of the proposed KLETSkous CubeSat project. Visit www.amsatsa.org.za for details.
ARISAT-1 TO BE LAUNCHED FROM THE ISS NEXT WEEK
Expedition 26 Flight Engineers Dmitry Kondratyev and Oleg Skripochka, RN3FU, will step outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, February 16. While in space, they will install and retrieve experiments on the Russian segment of the complex and deploy ARISSat-1, a small amateur satellite. NASA TV coverage will begin at 6:45 (CST), while the spacewalk will begin about 30 minutes later.
During the nearly six hour spacewalk, Kondratyev and Skripochka will deploy an experiment called ARISSat-1, a boxy 57-pound nano satellite that houses congratulatory messages commemorating the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's launch to become the first human in space. ARISSAT will enable communications with Radio amateurs around the world for three to six months. It is the first of a series of educational satellites being developed in a partnership with the Radio Amateur Satellite Corp, the NASA Office of Education International Space Station National Lab Project, and the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program and RSC-Energia.
You can watch it live at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.
Current ARISSAT is being tested on board the ISS and can be copied on 145,950 MHz when orbiting over South Africa.
SECOND ZS-WAS TRIPLE PLAY AWARD MADE
Following on the heels of Barry, ZS2EZ, the second Worked All States Triple Play award has been made to a South African Radio Amateur. Certificate no 508 dated 17 January 2011 was awarded to Donovan van Loggerenberg, ZS2DL, for working all 50 US States on phone, CW and RTTY and confirming all the contacts via Logbook of the World.
CONTEST NEWS
The SARL Digital Contest has been created to encourage contacts between radio amateurs in Southern Africa using the PSK31 and/or RTTY. The contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa.
The first Digital contest for 2011 will be run from 13:00 to 16:00 UTC on Sunday 27 February with activity on 80, 40 and 20 metres. The following segments must be used, on 80 metres 3 580 to 3 600 kHz; 40 metres - 7 040 to 7 060 kHz and 20 metres - 14 070 to 14 099 kHz with PSK31 preferred at the lower end and RTTY preferred at the upper end of the specified frequencies. Please note that USB must be used at all times.
A station may be contacted twice on each band, once on RTTY and once on PSK31. A signal report plus a sequential serial number starting at 001 is exchanged. The complete rules can be found on page 58 and 59 of the 2011 SARL Contest Manual.
Results of the 2011 Summer QRP Sprint.
15 logs were received which showed that at least 72 stations were on the air. Of the 15 received logs, 5 stations operated both modes (SSB and CW).
All the divisions were active as well as 2 DX stations. There were only a few ZR and ZU's - wonder why ??
In total 255 contacts were made of which 234 were voice and 21 CW.
The final results are as follows:-
1st ZS6WR 792 points
2nd ZS6A 768 points
3rd ZS6AF 720 points
4th ZS2J 675 points
5th ZS6XT 560 points
6th ZS6SKY 528 points
7th ZS6BNE 240 points
8th ZS6SGM 234 points
9th ZU6TAN 180 points
10th ZS5J 168 points
11th ZU6HOT 165 points
12th ZS6RBJ 150 points
13th ZS6ARQ 140 points
14th ZS6APT 88 points
15th ZS2EC 60 points
CLUB NEWS
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is still at low levels. Sunspot 1 153 is rotating out of direct earth view and Sunspot 1 156, which is located in the southern hemisphere has been quiet. The effective sunspot number is expected to be less than 20 for the coming week.
15 m will provide the best opportunities for DX followed by 20 m. Conditions to India will be good from the afternoon till after sunset. During the afternoons conditions will be fair towards Europe on 15 m, later to be followed by fair 20 m openings. Good 15 m contacts with the USA are possible during the evenings. Contacts with Australia are possible on 20 m at sunrise. 15 and especially 20 m openings to Brazil and South America are possible during the afternoons. With the good 15 and 20 m openings 17 m will also be full of surprises.
For the CW and digital enthusiasts 30 m may be very rewarding with openings to many parts of the world.
Locally 40 m is the workhorse for contacts around the country with 20 and 30-m also being very useful for contacts over the longer distances. 80 m will be best during the early mornings and late afternoons as well as over the shorter distances.
80 m is the frequency of choice during the evenings.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
13 February - SARL National Field Day and ZS85SARL on the air for the last time, ends today Sunday at 12:00 CAT.
18 February – Comments on ZS9 call signs to be in to armi@sarl.org.za.
21 February - Logs for the SARL field day to be in to the Bloemfontein ARC.
25 February - Logs for AWA CW Activity day to be in to Andy, ZSADY.
27 February - The first Digital contest for 2011 will be run from 13:00 to 16:00 UTC on Sunday with activity on 80, 40 and 20 metres.
28 February - Offers to host a station at Sun City during IARU Region 1 conference to be in to iaru2011@sarl.org.za.
25 March - SAiSAT briefing session at the NARC.
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 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 Today every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area, with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 560 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 22:05 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 Gustav, ZS6BWN.
Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX
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