SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 30 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 in to the South African Radio League news bulletin on Sunday mornings at 08:15 Local Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 Local 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.

It is with sadness that we have to anounce the passing of another icon in the amateur radio circle of friends.

Many radio amateurs in the country will be saddened to hear of the sudden passing at her home over the weekend of Eileen Fouche, recently retired liaison between radio amateurs and ICASA for more than 2 decades. Eileen had time to listen to everyone, and engineered many solutions where amateurs were battling to solve administrative interactions with ICASA.

Our deepest sympathies go to her two sons, Pieter and James.


PAUSE

IN THE NEWS TODAY

NEW SUBCOMMITTEE TO LIAISE WITH SENTECH
ZS6 VHF SIGNALS HEARD IN PORT ELIZABETH
SARL MEMBERSHIP
AND
THE NEXT ARIA WILL BE HELD IN PRETORIA

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items

** The SARL formed a subcommittee to engage with Sentech on the location of Amateur Radio repeaters on Sentech towers around South Africa. For many years a MOU was in place in which Sentech would provide free of charge accommodation for Amateur Radio Repeaters on 6 different sites. The MOU was signed between the SARL and Sentech in August 1996. Since that date there have been many changes. The SARL requirements have changed and required new sites while over the past few years Sentech was transformed into a company. Recently Sentech introduced a facilities leasing policy with a financial budget to meet which makes it difficult to provide services free of charge.

At the meeting this week the SARL subcommittee presented the case why Amateur Radio should be treated differently. Amateur repeaters provide a service to the Amateur Community which in turn provide a community service such as support for major sporting events and search and rescue and emergency back-up communication. During the meeting the SARL delegation positioned the importance of HAMNET and the need for good communication facilities in which high sites are crucial.
The discussions were fruitful with a further meeting planned in the near future to finalise a proposal to be submitted to the Sentech Exco. Council members representing the SARL are Fritz Sutherland ZS6SF, Nico van Rensburg ZS6QL, Geoff Levey ZS6C and Hans van de Groenendaal ZS6AKV.



** Following the success of the first ARiA at the NARC last weekend, the next symposium will be held at the Innovation Hub in Pretoria on Saturday 19 September. Book now for the Amateur Radio event of the year. Full details and the registration form can be found on www.sarl.org.za.



** Following the discussion with the Deputy Chairman of SALGA further initiatives have been explored. The Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services has launched a rapid deployment initiative aimed at speeding up the role out of broadband by addressing the disparate municipal and zoning regulations which are inhibiting the process unnecessary. The SARL ADFI committee sees opportunities to address the restriction on amateur antenna in residential areas and is engaging the department.
In parallel the Radio Communications committee of SABS Technical committee TC74 is working on a guideline for wireless communication sites and has set up a task force to consider draft proposals. The SARL is represented on the task force which is likely to meet in the next few weeks.

SARL President, Fritz Sutherland, ZS6SF said that the SARL is following a policy of addressing the antenna issue on as many fronts as possible.


** Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ, and Francois Botha, ZS6BUU, started a CW net on 144,250 MHz on Wednesday evenings at 20:00 CAT to foster CW operation on VHF and encourage long distance contacts. Wednesday (19th) Ken Victor, ZS2OC, heard the alphabet repeated on 144,250 MHz CW at about S2, completely readable but did not hear a call sign. The distance between Krugersdorp and Port Elizabeth is around 900 km. This means that many countrywide CW contacts are possible on VHF if one makes the effort.


** Are you still an SARL member?
Membership fees become payable on 30 June. After that date the SARL gives a grace period of two months, that ends on 30 August. Members whose membership fees are not paid up at the beginning of September, are then removed from the membership list.
The last reminder invoices were sent two weeks ago.
Keep your unbroken membership - pay the subscription fee before the end of August.
Members wishing to check their membership status can do it on the SARL website. Go to "+membership" and then click on "membership status" and type in you call sign where it is required.

** There are five days left to register and get all documents up to date for the RAE. The RAE registrations process closes at midnight on 3 September. Three reminders have gone out to all candidates. Lecturers and Invigilators must kindly assist the candidates to get their information and documentation uploaded to the system.

Those who have outstanding documents or fees on 4 September will not be able to write the examination.

The following documents need to be upload:

Copy of their identification document
ICASA signature document
Proof of payment
Non South African residence need to provide proof of residence.

Please contact the RAE Manager for any support or information. Contact details are: e-mail, rae@sarl.org.za or cell phone number 0824541272.

** This afternoon from 13:00 to 16:30 UTC you can participate in the HF CW Contest with activity from 3 510 to 3 560 kHz; 7 000 to 7 040 kHz and 14 000 to 14 060 kHz. You can participate as a Single Operator Single Band, a Single Operator All Band; a Multi Operator Single Band or a Multi Operator All Band station. The exchange is a RST report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. CW contacts count 2 points. Count two points for each call area on each band and count 2 points for each station contacted on all three bands. Log sheets must only be submitted in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format by by e-mail to zs4bfn@gmail.com by midnight 23 August 2015. Please do not submit your log as a jpg, png or PDF file! Consult the 2015 Blue Book for the rules.

** First ZS to ZS contact on 8 metres. Radio amateurs in South Africa have had ac-cess to 40,675 to 40,685 MHz for many years, but is was only really discovered ear-lier in 2015 when the new radio regulations were promulgated by ICASA.

In a telephone conversation, Willem Badenhorst, ZS6WAB, informed the South Afri-can Radio League about the first-ever ZS to ZS contact on 40,675 MHz. It was made on Sunday 16 August 2015 between Ian Roberts, ZS6BTE, in Johannesburg (KG33xv) and Willem, ZS6WAB, at Polokwane (KG46rc) using FSK441 and covering 288 km. Both stations are equipped with a three element Yagis and 100 Watts. They are looking for more contacts.

Read the article by Ian, ZS6BTE, in the September 2015 Radio ZS.

** The Provisional Results of the SARL HF Digital Contest. The contest committee received seven logs for the HF Digital contest held on Sunday 16 August

1st Roger Jones, ZS6RJ, 166 points
2nd Les Elliot, G4OGB, 52 points
3rd Jack Welch, 5R8SV, 48 points


Club Competition

1st West Rand ARC, 184 points
2nd Centurion ARC and Lichtenburg ARC with 22 points each

Roger, ZS6RJ, achieved the highest score on a single band with 114 points on 20 metres.
Congratulations Roger!

** The second leg of the SARL National Field Day takes place from 10:00 UTC on Saturday 12 September to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 13 September 2015, with phone, CW and digital (PSK and RTTY) activity on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 metres. You have two weeks to get your plans in place. Get all the rules in the 2015 Blue Book.

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at moderate levels. Sunspot AR2403 has a complex magnetic configuration and may produce M- or X- class solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 39.

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.

Diary

30 August - the South African Radio League HF CW Contest
5 September - 50 Years of Amateur Radio Festival hosted by the Sasolburg ARC
6 September - closing date for HF CW logs
12 and 13 September - SARL National Field Day
19 September - Amateur Radio in Action, Pretoria
19 and 20 September - the SARL VHF/UHF Contest

We end this bulletin with a summary of our main news item:

The SARL formed a subcommittee to engage with Sentech on the location of Amateur Radio repeaters on Sentech towers around South Africa. This was done to facilitate negotiations with regard to changes to the SENTECH bussiness model and the impact thereof on amateur radio.

With that we have come to the end of this bulletin:

** As part of the mission of the SARL news team to involve as many as possible amateurs in the system, we are constantly looking for new talent that can assist in the compilation, translation, proof reading and recording of bulletins. If you are able to assist us in this regard please contact Dennis Green, ZS4BS, Etienne Naudé, ZS6EFN or Dawie, ZR6DHC.

** Clubs and individuals are also invited to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, if possible, in both English and Afrikaans, by following the news inbox link on the South African Radio League web page. News items for inclusion in the bulletin should reach the news team no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin date.

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 Dawie Conradie,ZR6DHC, edited by Brian Utterson, ZS6AE, and read by ..............

From the entire news team, best wishes for the week ahead.

73's and thank you for listening

/EX