SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 07 DECEMBER 2014
Good morning and welcome! You are tuned to a news broadcast of the South African Radio League read by .................. (Name, call sign and QTH).
You can tune to the South African Radio League news broadcast on Sunday mornings at 08:15 central African time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 central African time in English on HF and on many VHF and UHF repeaters around the country. Echolink listeners can connect to ZS0JPL for a relay. A podcast is available from the South African Radio League web site.
This audio bulletin can be downloaded from the South African Radio League website at www.sarl.org.za. You can find this bulletin and previous bulletins in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the webpage. While you are there, you can sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.
We unfortunately have to start this morning’s bulletin with news of a silent key:
It is with deep regret that we have to announce the passing of Kobie Conradie, ZS4KC, on Thursday 27 November. Kobie was a past Hamnet director for the Free State.
We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.
PAUSE
In the news today:
SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE YOUTH NET TODAY USING ZS9YOTA
DEADLINE FOR SARL NEWS
SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE 90 YEARS CELEBRATIONS
and
TAKE YOUR VHF RIG ON HOLIDAY FOR LOTS OF FUN.
Our leading story this morning
** The monthly South African Radio League Youth net will be on the air this afternoon at 15:00 central African time on 7 070 kHz. The aim of the net is to bring young radio amateurs together. Today's net will use the call sign ZS9YOTA, “Youngster on the Air.” Any person 25 years old or younger who calls in and appears in the log will enter the lucky draw for a Welleman Solder kit sponsored by FG electronics.
For more on YOTA and how you can participate visit www.hamradio.org.za. Register to use the special call sign and have fun with your peers on the air.
** After much correspondence this past week, it was decided that the deadline for news items for the bulletins will for now, remain on Thursday noon. However, with this said, it has now become necessary to enforce this deadline on a much stricter basis.
Since some of the bulletin compilers only have Friday evenings available for the editing of the news bulletin, it will in future not be possible to accommodate articles that arrive after the deadline.
Please make sure that urgent and/or time-sensitive inserts are delivered to the news team before the deadline in order to avoid disappointment.
** The South African Radio League met with ICASA on Friday for the quarterly liaison meeting. A number of issues resulting from the regulatory workshop held in August this year were discussed. These included the expansion of the 160-metre band and the use of higher power on amateur exclusive HF bands. Proposals will be submitted to the ICASA Council, which will meet in early January 2015.
The South African Radio League discussed preliminary proposals on how to address the issue of type approval. The South African Radio League will now formulate a submission motivating changes to the regulations to exempt radio amateurs from the requirements of type approval of amateur radio equipment.
ICASA alerted the South African Radio League that amendments to radio regulations promulgated on 1 April 2011 will be published in the Government Gazette for comments the coming week. In addition, ICASA will also be publishing amendments in the way which license fees are determined. From the 2016/2017 financial year license fees will be inflation linked. Radio Amateurs who hold one-year licenses can protect themselves against increases in license fees for the next 5 years by converting their license to a five-year licence when paying their renewals on 1 April 2015
As soon as the Government Gazettes are published, the South African Radio League will publish the documents on the web for comment. The South African Radio League was represented at the meeting by President Geoff Levey and Councillors Hans van de Groenendaal and Nico van Rensburg and Colin de Villiers. The meeting was followed by the annual South African Radio League lunch.
** The South African Radio League will celebrate its 90th anniversary with a special call sign. In last week's SARL News, an unfortunate error slipped into the last sentence of the news item, we mentioned the e-mail address incorrectly. To book a slot to operate the special call sign ZS90SARL, please send your request to sarl90@sarl.org.za.
Here is a summary of the 4-month special event. From the 1 January 2015, the special call sign ZS90SARL will be celebrating the 90th anniversary of the formation of the South African Radio Relay League, which was formed in May 1925. The name was later changed to the South African Radio League.
ZS90SARL is available to all affiliated clubs on a rotation bases for period on one week (Monday to Sunday). Applications to operate the call sign are now open and should be sent by e-mail to SARL90@sarl.org.za. Clubs and individual South African Radio League members applying for the use of the call sign must clearly indicate times and frequency of operation. Logs must be kept electronically, preferably in the N1MM format and forwarded at the end of the week to contest@sarl.org.za for uploading to Logbook of the World.
** Take a VHF transceiver plus a small Yagi beam antenna with you during your summer holiday. You could enjoy some very long distance contacts on both 50 MHz and 144 MHz in the mornings after sunrise, or at night on 144 MHz, the Tropo Band.
In the early days the Band-1 television FM sound channels above 53,750 MHz from Zimbabwe and Zambia daily romped in S9 plus at Port Elizabeth between 12:00 and 14:00 CAT, which was propagated by Sporadic-E during the months of December and January. So at noon turn your beam north and try to log some V5 or Z2 stations or some rare DX beyond.
Just imagine sitting around the braai fire at night with a beer in one hand and a microphone in the other, while renewing an acquaintance with a distant VHF ham also on holiday. You can copy the list of cell phone numbers of over a hundred South African VHF amateurs posted on the SARL VHF Forum to arrange some distant skeds via SMS. Enjoy your holiday.
** The East Rand Radio Club ends 2014 on a high note! The Club ended their activities for 2014 with a formal dinner on the 29 November 2014. At the event, Club members were treated to an excellent formal dinner and members were awarded for their contributions and support to the club in the past year. Fifty-four awards were made. We particularly want to congratulate the following members and non-members of ERB that received the following trophies:
Life Membership was awarded to Ben Fourie, ZS6BEN
ERB Phone Trophy: Dior Dreyer-Juselius, ZS6DJD
Johan du Plooy Floating Trophy: Willem van der Merwe, ZS6WIM
ZS6ERB CW / Digital Modes Trophy: Johan Meyer, ZS6DMX
ERB QRP Trophy: Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT
Danie and Elize van Wyk Floating Trophy: Johan Meyer, ZS6DMX
Frank Mercier HAMNET Trophy: Leon Lessing, ZS6LMG
We also want to thank the West Rand Amateur Radio Club, ZS6WR, for the generous donation made towards the ERB Club Building Fund. Members of ERB and the South African Radio League are invited to join East Rand Radio Club in 2015 when we resume our activities on the 31 January 2015 with a Summer Flea market at Arrowe Park in Benoni.
Thank you to every one of our members and friends who helped make 2014 the success it was. ZS6ERB also celebrates 77 years of Amateur Radio in the East!
You are listening to a bulletin of the South African Radio League
** This afternoon from 13:00 to 16:00 UTC, you can participate in the South African Radio League Digital Contest with PSK31 and RTTY operation on 20, 40 and 80 meters. A station may be contacted twice on each band, once on RTTY and once on PSK31.
The exchange is a RST report plus a sequential serial number starting at 001. Contacts with stations in Southern Africa are worth 3 points and contacts with stations outside Southern Africa are worth 1 point. Logs must be submitted by 14 December 2014 to contest@sarl.org.za. Read the rules on page 40 of the Contest Manual for the multipliers and final scoring detail.
** The contest committee received 11 logs for the second leg of the National Field Day. Thank you to everybody who submitted logs. The full results are available in HF Happenings 634.
Class A - Field Station, Multi operator:
1st Highway ARC, ZS5HAM, 81 480 points
2nd West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 77 004 points
3rd Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA, 61 452 points
Class C - Field Station - Single Operator:
1st Andries Visagie, ZS6VL/4, 27 240 points
2nd Dennis Green, ZS4BS, 60 points
Class F - General stations:
1st Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT, 11 808 points
2nd Theunis Potgieter, ZS2EC, 730 points
3rd Peet Pretorius, ZS4VP, 300 points
Congratulations to the Class winners.
The combined results of the February and the November legs of the National Field Day:
Class A - Field Station, Multi operator:
1st East Rand ARC, ZS6ERB, 153 600 points
2nd Highway ARC, ZS5HAM, 150 480 points
3rd West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 127 884 points
Class C - Field Station - Single Operator:
1st Andries Visagie, ZS6VL/4, 27 240 points
2nd Dennis Green, 7P8DG, 15 648 points
3rd Robbie Parkinson, ZS1RAP, 12 192 points
Class D - Field Station - Single Operator – QRP:
1st Richard Hayter, ZS6RSH, 24 624 points
Class E - Ultra light portable:
1st Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, 1 890 points
Class F - General stations:
1st Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT, 39 948 points
2nd Johann van Zijl, ZS4DZ, 6 012 points
3rd Pravin Kumar, ZS5LT, 5 824 points
Congratulations to everybody.
** The results of the South African Radio League VHF/UHF Contest held on the 15 and 16 November are as follows:
Base Station Analogue:
1st Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ - 28 809 points
2nd Koos du Plessis, ZS6BFD - 9 148 points
3rd Jaco le Roux, ZS6PX - 6 260 points
Base Station Analogue (4 hour limited):
1st Dave Dusseljee, ZS6UD - 2 972 points
2nd Koos Greyvenstein, ZS6KSG - 990 points
Club / Multi Operator Field Station:
1st Potchefstroom ARC, ZS6POT - 24 680 points
2nd Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA - 15 647 points
3rd Rustenburg ARC,ZS6RTB - 11 343 points
2 Meters:
1st Potchefstroom ARC, ZS6POT - 14 640 points
2nd Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ - 11 892 points
3rd Koos u Plessis, ZS6BFD - 6 828 points
70 cm:
1st Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ - 12 852 points
2nd Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA - 5 733 points
3rd Rustenburg ARC, ZS6RTB - 4 886 points
23 cm:
1st Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ - 4 050 points
2nd Koos de Plessis, ZS6BFD - 1 566 points
3rd Dick Coates, ZS6BUN - 1 494 points
Congratulations to the winners.
** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity will be low to moderate levels. Active region 2222 has a complex magnetic configuration and may produce further M-class solar flares. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 88.
The 20 to 10 metre bands will provide many openings with 15 metre especially providing lots of DX fun on sunlit paths. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
** And now the diary of events
1 to 31 December - Youth on the Air with ZS9YOTA
7 December – The South African Radio League Youth Net on 7 070 with ZS9YOTA and the South African Radio League digital contest
13 and 14 December - ARRL 10 meter contest
15 December - input to the South African Radio League on the national integrated ICT policy discussion document
1 January 2015 – ZS90SARL goes on the air
To end this bulletin, a quick recap of the leading story:
The monthly South African Radio League Youth net will be on the air this afternoon at 15:00 central African time on 7 070 kHz. The aim of the net is to bring young radio amateurs together. Today's net will use the call sign ZS9YOTA, “Youngster On The Air”. Any person 25 years old or younger who calls in and appears in the log will enter the lucky draw for a Velleman Solder kit sponsored by FG electronics.
** You are invited to submit news items of interest to the South African Radio League by following the news inbox link on the South African Radio League webpage. News items for inclusion in the bulletin, should reach the news team no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.
You may join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine program Amateur Radio Today at 10:00 Central African Time. The program may be heard on VHF and UHF repeaters countrywide and on 7 082 kHz lower side-band and on 7 205 kHz and 17 760 kHz AM. There is also a podcast by Dick, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast may be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African Time on 4 895 kHz AM. We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; send it in an e-mail to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the radio transmissions on the non-amateur frequency bands.
You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Dawie ZR6DHC, edited by Dennis Green, ZS4BS and read by ...................
Thank you for listening and from the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead, 73's.
/EX
