SARL NEWS SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2013

You are listening to ZS6SRL, the official radio station of the South African Radio League, the national body for amateur radio in South Africa. The SARL broadcasts 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. For audio via Echolink, connect to ZS0JPL-R.

You can download this bulletin and previous ones from www.sarl.org.za and also subscribe there to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

Your news reader this morning is (name and call sign), on 145,725 from Pretoria, with relays on 7,066 MHz and 3,695 MHz SSB. (Other news readers change to suit).

IN THE NEWS TODAY:
NATIONAL PREPARATORY WORKING GROUP FOR WRC15 TO ADVISE GOVERNMENT
ASTRONAUT HAM FLIES PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL TO ISS
UK FUNERAL INTERRUPTED BY RF - A STORY WITH A TWIST

You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more details on these and other important and interesting items.

NATIONAL PREPARATORY WORKING GROUP FOR WRC15 TO ADVISE GOVERNMENT

The National Preparatory Working Group for WRC 15 held its first meeting in Pretoria last Thursday to develop South Africa's position on the many agenda items at the next World Radio Conference which will be held in Geneva in November 2015.

Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, represented the SARL and was nominated as rapporteur for agenda item 1.4 which is about an allocation to the amateur service on a secondary basis at around 5 300 kHz. Although at a high level, SADC is supporting the agenda item a lot of work still has to be done to support the proposal. Once South Africa's position has been agreed, the lobby will start to get SADC to accept the position and after that the African Telecommunication Union. A lot of hard work lies ahead.

The 5 MHz SARL research project was touched on at the meeting with the comment that it is encouraging that an organisation is taking the initiative to start research on the propagation aspects of the band. The SARL recently announced that it will establish a beacon at the NARC and is encouraging clubs to do the same in their areas. Individual amateurs are urged to install the software in readiness of the beacon going live on 5250 kHz soon.

In the interim radio amateurs who have been using 5 MHz are requested to send in logs showing date, time and the locators for both stations. The address for the logs is propresearch@sarl.org.za.

SARL RTA COMES TO DURBAN NEXT

The next RTA will be held at the University of kwaZulu-Natal in Durban on 14 September 2013. Full details and the booking form are available on the web at www.sarl.org.za. Please book early to facilitate the arrangements for catering and to ensure that the kit and CD are available at the event for delivery. As with the other RTA's five digital multi meters can be won donated by Corel-I.
The closing date for registration is Thursday mid-day, after that the registration fee goes up from R70 to R100 for walk in registrations. Help the organiser to present a successful RTA by registering this week-end but not later than Thursday at noon.

Booking should be sent to rta@sarl.org.za or by fax to 012 991 5651. There is an interesting line up of presentations. Learn about aspects of antennas that you may not have known about before. Find out about the Durban University of Technology Multi-frequency Interferometer Telescope for Radio Astronomy (MITRA, an international collaborative project between the University of Mauritius (UoM) and the Durban University of Technology (DUT). The objective of the project is to implement Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) between Mauritius and South Africa in the VHF/UHF band. This presentation gives an overview of the signal chain of the DUT station.

ASTRONAUT HAM FLIES PRESIDENTIAL MEDAL TO ISS

Amateur Radio Newsline reports that an astronaut aboard the International Space Station has paid tribute to the late United States president John F. Kennedy by flying a medallion to the orbiting outpost that bears the likeness of the 35th President of the United States. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, KF6KDR, who is serving as a flight engineer on board the space station, radioed photos down to Mission Control on Wednesday, August 21st showing the medal floating in front of a window with a view of the Earth below.

When he returns to Earth this fall, Cassidy will deliver the medal back to the JFK Library, where it will become a part of its permanent collection. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is located in Boston, Massachusetts and has a permanent exhibit devoted to the race for space that began in the 1960's.

UK FUNERAL INTERRUPTED BY RF - A STORY WITH A TWIST

We have all heard of RF getting into public address systems, but this one truly has to take the prize for the unusual. Amateur Radio Newsline's Cheryl Lasek, K9BIK, has the rather strange details: Can you imagine being at a funeral service when the sound coming out of the loud speaker system is suddenly interrupted by airline stewardess' message to her passengers? Well it actually happened recently in the United Kingdom when what's been described as a mysterious voice was heard through a church's public address system during a funeral service telling passengers on a plane to prepare for landing.

The story goes this way. Friends and family of Brendan Duffy had gathered at St Edward's Church in Windsor, Berkshire, to pay their final respects after the Dublin-born grandfather-of-four died on August 8th, at age 78. But as his nephew Joe Duffy was reading the eulogy, everyone was suddenly told to fasten their seat belts and for the other flight attendants to prepare the aircraft's doors for landing.

While some might have thought it could have been a sign from the heavens above a more rational explanation is that the church's wireless microphone system and the two-way radio system on the aircraft were on the same frequency. But that would not explain how the announcement made using a closed loop in-cabin public address system could get transmitted outside the airplane unless perhaps someone pushed the wrong button on the flight deck. That said, as we go to air, the mystery of the RF signal from on-high remains unexplained.

Joe Duffy is a local radio personality. He told a news reporter that everyone at the service was looking around and up to heaven, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.


LEAGUE NEWS

NEW VHF COLUMN IN RADIO ZS
"The World of VHF, UHF and Microwaves" is a new VHF column that is now being featured in RADIO ZS. It is hoped that it will inspire some of the HF and especially the younger radio amateurs to take up the challenge and also explore the radio world of VHF, and they could enjoy the best of two worlds.

Radio technology is advancing rapidly and moving up the electromagnetic spectrum, and it would be a pity if many of our radio amateurs are left behind. After all our predecessors were pioneers in their time, but we could at least try and keep up with developments and participate in this vast new field of radio.

You do not need the most expensive equipment with all the bells and whistles to start with on VHF, you can gradually improve your equipment as you go along, especially the antenna system that is the most important part and you could build it yourself. This way you can keep abreast of new discoveries and also experiment in this exciting amateur radio world.

SARL MEMBERSHIP
As of today, 1343 members of the SARL have already paid their membership fees for the 2013-2014 membership year.

Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from:
Olivier van Staden, ZS1OLI,
Ernest du Plessis, ZR6BDZ,
Bob Hewstone, ZS6BRQ,
David Langstone, ZR6VV.
Ben Slabberts applied for listener membership.

Any objections against the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.

During the past two week, another seven clubs have renewed their affiliation to the SARL. They are:
Midlands Amateur Radio Club - ZS5PMB
Welkom Radio Club - ZS4WRC
Sandton Amateur Radio Club - ZS6STN
Zululand Amateur Radio Club - ZS5ZLB
Wolkberg Radio Amateur Club - ZS6TWB
Suid-Kaap Amateur Radio Club - ZS1SKR
East Rand Amateur Radio Club - ZS6ERB

Club affiliation is free of charge.

CLUB NEWS

EAST RAND RADIO CLUB
The East Rand Radio Club held their yearly Annual General Meeting on Saturday 31st of August and the following committee members were elected:
Chairman: Francois Jacobs ZS6COI
Vice Chairman: Ben Fourie ZS6BEN
Secretary: Judy Pretorius ZS6JDY
Treasurer: Chris Gryffenberg ZS6COG
Youth matters; Mitchel Mynhardt ZS6YH
Repeater Custodian: Hampie Findt ZS6HJF
QSL Manager: Pieter Jacobs ZS6XT
Flea Market Coordinator: Hennie Rudman ZS6RHL RAE coordinator: Willem van der Merwe ZS6WIM News Bulletins: Bato Jakovljevic ZS6BAT News Letter: Elize Findt ZS6ECF
Webmaster: Glynn Chamberlain ZS6GLN
HAMNET: Leon Lessing ZS6LMG
Practical Projects: Marc d'Hotman ZS6MDH HF Manager: Francois Reyneke ZS6FDX Clubhouse Curator: Scott Bigwood ZS6BYT


CONTEST NEWS

SARL HF CW CONTEST
The results of the SARL HF CW Contest held on 25 August 2013. The committee received 15 logs, which included 3 logs from DX stations.

1st Bernie van der Walt, ZS4TX, 274 points 2nd Vidi la Grange, ZS1EL, 118 points 3rd Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 116 points

The best score on a single band went to Bernie van der Walt with 194 points on 20 metres.

The combined results of the SARL HF Phone, Digital and CW Contests are as follows:

1st Bernie van der Walt, ZS4TX, 424 points 2nd Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 403 points 3rd Lucas Holtzhausen, ZS6LH, 308 points

Club Competition

1st Bloemfontein ARC, 835 points
2nd Rustenburg ARC, 308 points
3rd Boland ARC, 210 points

SARL VHF/UHF CONTEST.
The second leg of the SARL VHF/UHF Digital and Analogue Contest will be run from 10:00 UTC on Saturday 21 September to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 22 September. Activity takes place on 6, 4 and 2 metres, 70 and 23 cm and higher. Find all the rules in the 2013 SARL Contest Manual.


HF PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels with no threats of strong solar flares. The entire middle portion of the visible disk is void of sunspots. This is hard to believe for a predicted solar maximum.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 48.

All the bands from 20 to 12 m will provide lots of DX fun with 20 m providing the best openings with 15 m not far behind. 10 m openings will be few and far between.

Please visit the new website http://spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.


DIARY OF EVENTS

3 September – West Rand Flea Market
14 September – RTA KaZulu-Natal
21 – 22 September - SARL VHF/UHF Digital and Analogue Contest
25 – 28 September – SARL Exhibit at ESKOM EXPO for Young Scientists

SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and short-wave 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 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 17 660 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 3 230 kHz. The website also lists various other retransmissions. Reception reports, comments and suggestions are invited. Send an email to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

You have listened to a bulletin of the South African Radio League compiled and edited by Louis Kirstein, ZS1LK.

Thank you for listening, 73.

/EX