SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 9 AUGUST 2015
Good morning and welcome to the weekly news bulletin of the South African Radio League read by
[Your name, call sign and QTH]
You can tune into the South African Radio League news bulletin 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 League web site.
This audio bulletin can be downloaded from the 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 the bulletin with news of a two silent keys
It is with great sadness that we announce the tragic passing of Garth Williams ZS6GW. Garth passed away in a car accident on Tuesday evening, the fourth of August. Our deepest condolences go to his wife, Rosemary, and daughter, Claire and son, Kevin. He will be sadly missed.
Andrew Jansen, ZS5AND became a silent key this week. He had been in hospital for a while. Andrew was Chairman of the Zululand Amateur Radio Club. Once again we extend our deepest sympathy and condolences.
PAUSE
In the news today
HAVE YOU RENEWED YOUR SARL MEMBERSHIP?
SARL APPOINTS A NEW RAE AND TRAINING MANAGER
RAE REGISTRATION FOR OCTOBER NOW OPEN
AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE SKA
Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items.
** Have you renewed your SARL membership?
SARL membership runs from 1 July until 30 June the next year. To make it easier for members, the names of members who did not renew, are not cleared from the database until the end of August.
Membership renewal notices will go out during this week. If you do not renew your membership before 30 August, you will no longer be a member.
Do the right thing and support the SARL, the national body for amateur radio in South Africa. Thanks to all members who have already renewed.
** Nick Dreyer ZS6NCK has been appointed as the SARL Radio Amateur Examination and Training Manager. He takes over from Gideon Jannasch, ZS4GJA who has resigned from Council due to pressure of work. Gideon's main portfolio the last few years was the RAE. Despite holding down two post at work he handled the class B exam, which took place last Saturday, and spent time with the
new RAE Manager to get the October examination going. The SARL expresses it appreciation and thanks to Gideon.
Nick is a former club chairman of West Rand Club and is well versed in training matters. His title will be Manager, RAE and training. The administrative support will be provided by the SARL Administrator, Vonnie Oelofse. Nick can be reached at rae@sarl.org.za and Vonnie at admin@sarl.org.za or on 011 675 2393
** The RAE registration has been opened for the examination set for the 15 October 2015. Cost for the RAE is R475.00 for candidates older than 25 and R375.00 for those younger than 25. The closing date for registration will be midnight on 3 September 2015. All registrations must be done on the electronic RAE registration system. Candidates are reminded to upload the following documents:
* Copy of their identification document
* ICASA signature document
* Proof of payment
* Non South African residence need to provide proof of residence.
Clubs should advertise and market the RAE as much as possible. Please contact the RAE Manager for any support or information. Contact details are: e-mail, rae@sarl.org.za or cell phone number 0824541272.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
** AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THE SKA
The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is the greatest radio science project this century that will produce the cutting edge in the field of radio astronomy.
1. The data collected by the SKA in a single day would take nearly two million years to play back on an ipod.
2. The SKA will be so sensitive that it will be able to detect an airport radar on a planet tens of light years away.
3. The SKA central computer will have the processing power of about one hundred million PCs.
4. The 3000 dishes of the SKA in South Africa, which are designed to cover a narrow field of high resolution, will produce 10 times the global Internet traffic.
5. The SKA will use enough optical fibre to wrap twice around the world.
6. The aperture arrays of the SKA in Australia, which will cover a very wide field, could produce more than 100 times the global Internet traffic.
** HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR HUNT FOR ALIEN LIFE USING RADIO
Starting in January 2016 the most comprehensive search for intelligent life in space will be undertaken at the two largest steerable radio telescopes in the world, the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, USA, and the Parkes Observatory in New South Wales, Australia.
It was launched at the Royal Society of London by Professor Stephen Hawking and some of the world's leading experts such as the astronomer royal Lord Martin Rees, Geoff Marcy who discovered more exoplanets than anyone else, and the US astronomer Dr. Frank Drake who pioneered SETI. The sole sponsor of this $100 million project is a Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, who has often made contributions to science.
It is expected that radio signals could be received from the nearest 1000 stars if they are on the air, but extremely powerful radar signals might be detected from as far as the center of the Milky Way.
In turn Lick Observatory will look for laser signals as weak as 100 Watts from nearby stars 40 trillion kilometers away.
** This morning from 09:00 to 10:00 UTC you can participate in the South African Radio League YL Sprint. This is a fun activity to celebrate National Women's Day. The exchange is a RS report and YL or OM. It is a phone sprint on the 40 metre band (7 063 to 7 100 and 7 130 to 7 200 kHz). Contacts between YL stations are worth 5 points. Contacts between YL and OM stations are worth 3 points and contacts between OM stations are worth 1 point. Logs must be submitted by 15 August by e-mail to zs4bfn@gmail.com.
The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend is a 48 hour event that takes place on 15 and 16 August with about 438 lighthouse and lightships registered. South Africa has 14 lighthouses registered for the event. Look out for ZS1FUN from Dassen Island, IOTA AF-064 and lighthouse ZA-0030.
** The South African Radio League HF Digital Contest will take place on Sunday 16 August using the same rules as the HF Phone Contest run last Sunday - now it is PSK31 and RTTY activity on 20, 40 and 80 meters. Consult the SARL Blue Book for the relevant frequency sections to be used.
Results of the winter QRP contest.
9 logs and 1 checklog were received and the results as follows:-
1st. West Rand ARC ZS6WR 976 points
2nd. Pretoria ARC ZS6PTA 720 points
3rd. Hammies ARC ZS6ZU 714 points
4th. Johan van Zijl ZS4DZ 392 points
5th. Andre Le Roux ZS2AL 273 points
6th. Port Elizabeth ARC ZS2PE 189 points 7th. Heather Holland ZS6YE/5 75 points 8th. Stephen van Jaarsveldt ZS6SVJ 18 points.
The Hammies Club, operated by the youngsters, really deserve a round of applause. They did extremely well.
Results of the Top Band contest.
Only 3 logs were received and results are as follows.
1st Johan van Zijl ZS4DZ 163 points
2nd. Mitchel Mynhardt ZS6YH 148 points 3rd. Romeo Nardini ZS6ARQ 74 points
Where were the other logs?
** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:
* ZR6RA: Gordon Albert Prentice
* ZR6GA: Greg De Bruno Austin
* ZSL1166 Karin Duvel
Any objections to the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after the bulletin.
Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1236 plus 36 affiliated clubs
** In this weeks propagation report, Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. Growing sunspot AR2396 has a complex magnetic configuration and may produce M-class solar flares.
If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 48.
The 20 to 15 m bands will provide lots of DX fun, especially during the late afternoons and in the evenings.
Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
** And now for the diary of events
12 July the Youth Net this afternoon at 16:00 on 7 070 kHz
13 July closing date for ZS5 Sprint logs
18 July the Winter QRP Contest
18 to 25 July the 5th Youngsters on the Air Summer Camp in Italy
25 July closing date for the Winter QRP logs
25 and 26 July the RSGB Islands on the Air contest
To end this bulletin, a recap of our main news item this morning.
** SARL membership runs from 1 July until 30 June the next year. To make it easier for members, the names of members who did not renew, are not cleared from the database until the end of August.
Membership renewal notices will go out during this week. If you do not renew your membership before 30 August, you will no longer be a member.
** Nick Dreyer ZS6NCK has been appointed as the SARL Radio Amateur Examination and Training Manager. He takes over from Gideon Jannasch, ZS4GJA who has resigned from Council due to pressure of work.
You are welcome to join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine programme Amateur Radio Today at 10:00 Central African Time. The programme 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 from Dick Stratford, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast can be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African Time on 3 230 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 Etienne Naude, ZS6EFN, and read by
..
From the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
73's and thank you for listening
