SARL NEWS - SUNDAY 18 DECEMBER 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 'Amateur Radio Today' 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.
SILENT KEYS
It is with regret that it has to be announced that the keys of two radio amateurs went silent a few weeks ago.
The key of Ray Langton, ZS6EJ, went silent on 2 November 2011.
The key of Andries van Wyk, ZS6CEG, became silent on the 9th December.
Our sincerest condolences to all the relatives and friends of the deceased.
(PAUSE)
In the news today:
TRANSATLANTIC AMATEUR RADIO BALLOON IN FLIGHT
RUSSIAN MILITARY OFDM OPERATING ON 40 METRES
RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION
You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more details on these and other important and interesting items.
TRANSATLANTIC AMATEUR RADIO BALLOON IN FLIGHT
An amateur radio balloon carrying APRS that left the United States mainland and headed across the Atlantic Ocean toward the European continent, made it.
Ron Meadows, K6RPT, of the California Near Space Project launched four high-altitude balloons on at 00:00 UTC on Monday, 12 December. The balloons were expected to come down somewhere in the midwest US but one identifying on APRS as K6RPT-11 decided to take a cruise on the jet stream.
After departing US soil over New Jersey at an altitude of 110 000 ft it crossed the Atlantic Ocean overnight, amateurs in Southern Europe were asked to tune their gear to 144,390, which is the APRS channel used in the United States. They were then requested to assist in tracking K6RPT-11 on its pass over Europe.
The question at the time was where would it land. The answer came early in the morning of December 14th. At the time the balloon was out over the Alboran Sea in the Mediterranean when APRS tracking showed it suddenly descending. The last report via EB6AOK showed it at 14 558 feet and travelling at 35 miles an hour. At that point its assumed to have fallen into the sea but not before travelling over 7 000 statute miles 11 200 km) at well over 100 000 feet (30 500 m).
What is little known is that amateur radio experiments with balloons were first made in South Africa with a large team of radio amateurs led by Tony Reumerman, ZS6AOG, John Willescroft, ZS6EF, and Dave Woodhall, ZS6BNT. At the time ZS6AKV made a presentation at an AMSAT conference in the USA which started the ball rolling in other countries.
RUSSIAN MILITARY OFDM OPERATING ON 40 METRES
The IARU Monitoring System newsletter reports that the Russian military have been transmitting on 7 000,8 kHz using OFDM 112 coding. The transmitter generating the unwanted noise appears to be located near the city of Severomorsk.
But Russia is not alone on the 40 metre band. The IARU also notes that Chinese Over the Horizon Radar has turned up several times on 7 MHz in the evening hours. It sometimes occupies as much as 280 kHz of spectrum and has been heard up to 7 040 kHz using the well known sweep rate of 43,5 sweeps per second.
Reports from South African Radio Amateurs are invited. Please send it to ZS1FCS, email zs1fcs@telkomsa.net.
RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION
The SARL invites papers for the Radio Technology in Action Symposiums which will be held on Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Gauteng. Please send a brief synopsis to artoday@sarl.org.za by 15 January 2012. Travel assistance is available if required. The SARL also invites suggestions of the kind of subject that you would like to learn more about. It is your opportunity to influence the programme.
SA AMSAT SPACE SYMPOSIUM
The 2012 SA AMSAT Space Symposium will be held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal on 12 May 2012. This is the second call for papers. Authors are invited to submit a brief synopsis of their proposed paper. The deadline is 31 January 2012. Send a synopsis as a word file attachment to saamsat@intekom.co.za. The theme of the conference is "50 Years of Amateur Radio Satellites" celebrating the launch of OSCAR 1 on 12 December 1961.
PROPOSED AMATEUR MF ALLOCATION RECEIVES A BOOST
The proposal to allocate a part of the medium frequency band to the amateur service at the World Radio Conference in 2012 received a boost this week with the release of the Asia-Pacific Common Proposals that were developed at the 5th Meeting of the APT Conference Preparatory Group for WRC-12.
During this meeting, the various nations of the Asia-Pacific region discussed many of the issues that will be addressed at WRC12 and attempted to come to a regional consensus position.
The proposal of interest to the amateur service is "to consider an allocation of about 15 kHz in parts of the band 415 - 526,5 kHz to the amateur service on a secondary basis, taking into account the need to protect existing services" and this proposal was supported by a comfortable margin of Asia-Pacific administrations responding to the voting request. The successful development of a regional position supporting an amateur MF allocation increases the chances that the proposal will be accepted at WRC-12.
The amateur radio service is represented at the APT meetings by delegates from Region 3 of the International Amateur Radio Union and by members of national amateur radio organisations who are part of delegations from each national administration.
CONTEST NEWS
SARL National Field Day.
The committee received 13 logs made up of 11 contest legs and 2 check logs. The 13 logs indicate that 210 South African radio amateurs took part in the contest; it is not sure what happened to the remaining 197 logs.
The winners of the various Classes are:
Class A - Field Station, Multi Operator
1st West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 91 200 points
2nd Northern Cape ARC, ZS3NC, 64 800 points 3rd Sasolburg ARC, ZS4SRK, 40 320 points
Class B - Field Station, Multi operator - QRP No entries
Class C - Field Station, Single Operator 1st Mitchell Mynhardt, ZS6YH, 32 352 points 2nd Marius Snyman, ZR6MS, 16 380 points
Class D - Field Station, Single Operator - QRP 1st Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, 10 476 points 2nd Dennis Green, ZS4BS/3, 2 880 points
Class E - General Stations
1st Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT, 23 160 points
Check logs were received from Pierre van Deventer, ZS6A, and Alan McCulloch, ZS6KU.
The West Rand ARC made many points on 15 and 10 metres with digital contacts.
The combined results of the February and November legs of the National Field Day are:
Class A - Field Station, Multi Operator
1st West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 187 800 points 2nd Northern Cape ARC, ZS3NC, 150 480 points 3rd Sasolburg ARC, ZS4SRK, 99 720 points
Class B - Field Station, Multi operator - QRP No entries
Class C - Field Station, Single Operator 1st Wessie Wessels, ZS2A, 43 200 points 2nd Pierre van Deventer, ZS6A, 40 560 points 3rd Mitchell Mynhardt, ZS6YH, 32 352 points
Class D - Field Station, Single Operator - QRP 1st Geoffery Lotz, ZR6XZ, 56 160 points 2nd Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, 21 186 points 3rd Dennis Green, ZS4BS/3, 2 880 points
Class E - General Stations
1st Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT, 60 660 points
2nd Derek Stuart, ZS2J, 9 360 points
3rd Renier Burger, ZU6HOT, 7 236 points (now ZS6HOT)
Well done to everybody who submitted a log and congratulations to the category winners. The February leg of the 2012 SARL National Field Day is scheduled for the weekend of 11 and 12 February 2012.
The complete results are available in HF Happenings 483.
LEN WELLS AMATEUR RADIO SPIRIT TROPHY
The Len Wells Amateur Radio Spirit trophy for 2011 was presented to Tom Cooper, ZS1PS, at the False Bay Radio Electronics and Computer Club end of year function on Saturday 10th December. Tom has been a dedicated worker for his club for many years and is a committee member and the Editor of their Newsletter DIALOG. In spite of being a big C survivor, he spent many week-ends building up their club house. Tom, 80 years of age, has 60 years of unbroken membership of the SARL.
That's true Amateur Radio Spirit! Congratulations Tom, may you still enjoy amateur radio for many years to come.
PORT ELIZABETH AMATEURS ARE LOOKING FOR COASTAL VHF DX
VHF amateurs in Port Elizabeth are looking for the VHF holiday makers along the south and east coasts of South Africa. They know that a number of amateurs will be spending their holidays at the coast, and some of them will take VHF gear along with them, such as Rassie, ZS1YT, and Derek, ZS5Y, who will be holidaying on the southern coast.
Some local amateurs will monitor the southern coast while others are watching the eastern coast and will alert each other about signals. The calling and listening schedules will be in the evenings between 19:00 CAT and 20:00 CAT on 144,400 MHz FM, and from 20:00 CAT onwards on 144,200 MHz USB. Also keep an eye on hot humid days when fantastic Tropo openings can occur.
Since all the local VHF amateurs are horizontally polarized and some equipped with high gain Yagis, the minimum requirement on the other side of the VHF path will be at least a horizontal dipole. The amateurs with the big Yagis will make up for the lack of antenna gain on the other side, and contacts longer than 400 km can be expected.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is declining with no threats of strong flares. The sun's surface is still peppered with smaller sunspots promising exciting HF conditions.
For the people doing their own frequency predictions the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 83.
All the bands from 20 to 10 m will provide lots of DX fun with the higher bands typically opening first and the lower bands opening later during the day. 6 m is also active with TEP openings from time-to-time.
Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.
DIARY OF EVENTS
15 January 2012 - Last day for submission of summaries of proposed papers for the Radio Technology in Action Symposiums 2012 to artoday@sarl.org.za.
31 January 2012 - Last day for submission of nominations for Council members and also for submission of motions for the 2012 SARL AGM.
31 January 2012 - Closing date for submitting papers for SA AMSAT Space Symposium.
Also: Submit nominations for SARL awards which will be presented at the gala dinner which will take place over the weekend of the 2012 SARL AGM.
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 17 760 kHz. There is also a podcast by ZS6RO. For a web-stream and Echolink by ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on 'Amateur Radio TODAY', go down the green column and click on 'LISTEN ON THE WEB'. A repeat transmission can be heard on Mondays at 16:30 UTC on 4 895 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, Z6SNE.
Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX
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