SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2015

Good morning and welcome! You are tuned to a news broadcast of the South African Radio League read by ..................... (name, call and QTH)

You may 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 our 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 will find this bulletin and previous bulletins in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the web page. While you are there, you can sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

We start this mornings bulletin with news of 2 silent keyS.

** It is with deep regret that SARL news have to announce the passing of Tina van Zyl ZS6BVG. Tina was a member of Tak Noord Transvaal now known as Magalies Radio Amateur club.
We extend our sincere condolences to her only son Pieter, family and friends.

Then from the SARL Forum, it has been noted that Luther Uys, ZS6E, passed away 13 February 2015. Luther joined the South African Radio League on 1 July 1947 and was one of the longest serving members of the League.

We extend our sincere condolences to his daughter Jennifer, other family and his many friends.

PAUSE

IN THE NEWS TODAY.

HAMNET 40 METER SIMULATED EMERGENCY CONTEST
ANZAC COMMEMORATION
HABEX TO BE LAUNCHED SHORTLY
AFRICA ALL MODE INTERNATIONAL CONTEST

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting stories.

** The South African Radio League Hamnet 40 meter Simulated Emergency Contest is open to all Radio Amateurs in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Lesotho, Marion Island and South African Antarctica. Only contacts with these areas will count. The contest will be on the air from 12:00 to 14:00 UTC on Sunday 1 March 2015 and it is a phone contest in the band segments 7 063 to 7 100 kHz and 7 130 to 7 200 kHz.

You may participate as a single operator stationary mobile, single operator portable, multi-operator portable or single operator base station. Stationary Mobile and Portable stations shall operate from the same site for the duration of the contest and all power used shall comply with the requirements for Field Stations in the general rules. The exchange is a signal report followed by a three-figure number depending on the class of participation

Please consult the 2015 Contest Manual for the scoring and multiplier details. Log sheets must be submitted by 7 March 2015 to Hamnet Eastern Cape, Al Akers, ZS2U, 53 Clarence Street, Westering, Port Elizabeth, 6025 or by e-mail to contest@peham.co.za

The closing date and time for logs for the National Field Day is midnight tonight, 22 February. Send you logs to zs4bfn@gmail.com

** Australia and New Zealand will be commemorating 100 years since the landing of troops at Gallipoli in WWI. This is a significant commemorative event and Amateur Radio in Australia will have special event call signs in operation for most of 2015. These call signs will have the special event prefix VI followed by the State or Territory designator and then the word ANZAC. See www.wia.org.au/newsevents/anzaccentenary/about/
More detailed information has been e-mailed to IARU Member Societies


** An urgent call for help. Andy Thiemann, HB9JOE, needs a ZS5 QSL card to complete his All Africa Award. He is unable to get a QSL card from the two ZS5 QSOs he has in the log. You can contact Andy at hb9joe@uska.ch to set up a sked and then exchange QSL cards direct and via LoTW.

** HABEX-10 to launch 25 April. The HABEX-10 Mission is scheduled for launching on Saturday 25 April. HABEX is the acronym for High Altitude Balloon Experiment. This flight is part of the Global Space Balloon Challenge for 2015. More information about HABEX and its ties to amateur radio is on the web at www.habex.za.net

** An application for membership of the SARL have been received from Adam Jacobus du Toit,ZS6ADT.
Any objections to the acceptance of the application must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.
Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1618 plus 36 affiliated clubs


** You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League and we now continue with some news from the league office and some contest news.

** An application for membership of the SARL have been received from Adam Jacobus du Toit,ZS6ADT.
Any objections to the acceptance of the application must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.

Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1618 plus 36 affiliated clubs

** The objective of the Africa All Mode International DX Contest is to stimulate contesting from Africa. All participating stations worldwide may work any entity during the contest period, but QSOs with radio amateurs from Africa are encouraged as reflected in the higher points being awarded in the scoring mechanism. African DXCC entities are defined as those valid per the ARRL DXCC AF listing published at the date and time of the contest.
The contest will run from 12:00 UTC on Saturday 14 March to 12:00 UTC on Sunday 15 March 2015. Both single and multi-operator stations may operate for the entire 24-hour period. There are no mandated breaks in operating time required. CW, RTTY and SSB may be used on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 metres.
The exchange is the RS(T) report followed by an incremental serial number commencing at 001. Changing modes or bands does not necessitate different serial number ranges. A complete exchange, consisting of an RS(T) and serial number, must be logged for each QSO.

All QSOs with African entities count 10 points and all other QSOs count 1 point. No paper entries will be accepted for the contest or checking purposes. Entries must be submitted in Cabrillo format only and be received no later than 30 March 2015. Entries must be sent to contest@sarl.org.za. Read the rules about scoring, multipliers and power on page 50 of the 2015 Contest Manual.

** The results of the QRP contest held on 24 January 2015 are as follows. Nine logs were received which included two check logs.

1st Rudi Venter, ZS6DX, 1 911 points (Ultra light category)
2nd West Rand ARC, ZS6WR, 408 points
3rd Theo Bresler, ZS6TVB, 245 points
4th Theunis Potgieter, ZS2EC, 120 points
5th Brian Jones, ZS6BV, 72 points
6th Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, 60 points (Ultra light category) and Dennis Green, ZS4BS, 60 points
8th Jan Gelderblom, ZS6JHG, 8 points

Check logs were received from the Pretoria ARC, ZS6PTA, and Michael, ZS6MSW. Congratulations to the winner, Rudi ZS6DX.


** The Westrand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 28 February 2015 at their clubhouse in Kroton street, Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. For more information contact Nick ZS6NCK on 082 454 1272.

** Radio communications started to move above 60 MHz or 5 meters, extending the limited VHF Line-Of-Sight range before World War ll began. Today everybody is familiar with DStv on Super High Frequency. Operating frequencies are rising in the electromagnetic spectrum as the demand grows for more bandwidth. Band allocations have been made by the ITU that stretched all the way up to the top end of the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) spectrum, i.e. 300 GHz, covering some of the following radio services: Aeronautical, Amateur, Maritime, Mobile, Radio Astronomy, Satellite, Space operation and Research etc.

In the 1920's radio amateurs discovered DX operation on MF and HF bands, which were regarded as useless for long distance operation which are still enjoyed by hams today. Amateurs should make a serious effort to explore the above mentioned higher frequencies. Fortunately, a few conscientious amateurs in the world have already contributed to the advancement of amateur radio on VHF, UHF, SHF and EHF using  various propagation modes. Distances of almost 4000 km on 144 MHz and over 2000 km on 10 GHz have already been logged via Tropo ducting, as well as numerous contacts made on Satellite and EME.


** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be at very low levels. The sun is peppered with seven sunspot groups, but most of them are small, and none of them is producing strong flares.
If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 63.
The 20 to 10 m bands will provide lots of DX fun.
Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

** And now the diary of events.
22 February - the South African Radio League Digital contest and closing date for National Field Day logs
21 and 22 February - ARRL International DX CW Contest
28 February – West Rand ARC Flea market
1 March – the Hamnet 40 metre Simulated Emergency Contest
14 and 15 March - Africa All Modes International DXCC contest
28 March – SARL@Home about DXing and Contesting
28 and 29 March – 5 MHz Activity Weekend
9 April - last day to register for the May RAE.
25 April – HABEX launch.

We end this bulletin with a recap of our leading story.

** The South African Radio League Hamnet 40 meter Simulated Emergency Contest is open to all Radio Amateurs in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Mozambique, Lesotho, Marion Island and South African Antarctica. The contest will be on the air on Sunday 1 March 2015.

** 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 are welcome join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine program Amateur Radio Today at 10:00 Central African Time. The program can 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 available by Dick, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast can 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 these by e-mail to artoday@sarl.org.za. Sentech sponsors the radio transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Johann du Plessis ZS6PSS edited by .Dawie Conradie, ZR6DHC, and read by ................................................

From the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead and be radio active.

73’s and thank you for listening

/EX