SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2016
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 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 Leagues web site.
This audio bulletin can be downloaded from the Leagues 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.
In the news today
DIGITAL CONTEST THIS AFTERNOON
HALL OF FAME NOMINATIONS CLOSE ON 29 FEBRUARY
and
THE RESULTS OF THE 2016 PEARS NATIONAL VHF AND UHF CONTEST
Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items.
** The SARL Digital contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa and will run from 13:00 UTC to 16:00 UTC this afternoon with PSK and RTTY on 80 metres (3 580 to 3 600 kHz); 40 metres (7 040 to 7 060 kHz) and 20 metres (14 070 to 14 099 kHz). The exchange is a RST report and a sequential serial number starting at 001. Logs, in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled your call sign Digital Contest, must be submitted by 6 March by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za. Get all the details in the 2016 Blue Book
** You are invited to take part in the Leap Year Challenge on Monday 29 February 2016 and make as many contacts as you can on this day. The challenge starts at 00:01 and ends at 23:59 CAT using all modes and all bands. Work a station once only regardless of band, mode or call sign. Submit your log by midnight on Wednesday 2 March 2016 by e-mail to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za. The log received with the most QSOs will win a SARL membership for 2016/2017. If you do not take part, you will have to wait until 2020, the next leap year, to put the date 29 February into your logbook!
** The deadline for nominations for the South African Radio League's Amateur Radio Hall of Fame is drawing near. Nominations must be received no later than the end of February, which is Monday 29 February.
After a slow start, we have now received a dozen nominations. It is gratifying to see the quality of nominees represented. The Hall of Fame is intended to help honour those that shaped amateur radio in South Africa and to preserve its history. The rules, received nominations and a nomination template are accessible via a link on the Leagues Home Page.
If you have submitted a nomination and it is not shown, please contact the Awards Manager or any member of the Council immediately to ensure that your nomination is taken into account. The final choice of a maximum of 10 members will be based on a vote of all SARL members, which will commence next week.
** The election of councillors. Nominations for Council closed on 31 January 2016.
The League Secretary received six valid nominations. Three of these are for currently serving councillors whose term end this year, but who are willing to be re-election. They are Geoff Levey, ZS6C, Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, and Fritz Sutherland, ZS6SF. One nomination was received for the Treasurer, Riaan Greeff, ZS4PR, who has made himself available for re-election.
Two new nominations were received. They are Etienne Naude, ZS6EFN, and Imile de Bruin, ZS6IDB. The currently serving councillors who are in mid-term are Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT, Johann Marais, ZS1JM, Frik Wolff, ZS6FZ, and Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL. As the serving councillors together with the nominations will fill the ten vacancies, there will be no election of councillors at the AGM. Council will consist of the persons listed in this bulletin.
** The South African Radio League Hamnet 40 m Simulated Emergency Contest will be on the air from 12:00 to 14:00 UTC on Sunday 6 March 2016. It 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. It is a phone contest in the band segments 7 063 to 7 100 kHz and 7 130 to 7 200 kHz. You can participate as a single operator stationary mobile station, a single operator portable station, a multi-operator portable station or a single operator base station. Consult the 2016 Blue Book for all the details.
** The March issue of Radio ZS will be available for download from Monday 29 February on the League web site. In this issue, Grant, ZS1GS, gives feedback about the 2015 Hamnet Exercise and tells us about APRS in the rescue environment. Dave, ZS1DFR, and Kevin, ZS6KMD, share some of their Hamnet experiences. Brian, G0GSF tells about Exercise Bushman and Hans, ZS6AKV, shares an article about man-made pollution of radio spectrum.
The YL Beam is about lighthouses; in the Museum column, Dave, ZS6AAW, tells about an aeronautical antenna farm and we have the feminine view on life with a radio amateur. There is more in this 44-page issue.
The theme for the April Radio ZS is home construction; send your article to radiozs@sarl.org.za
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
** The e-mail address for logs for the SARL Youth Sprint is not working. Please submit logs for this contest to zs4bs@netactive.co.za by Wednesday 2 March.
** Application for membership of the South African Radio League has been received from the following persons - Jan Hendrik Zwiegers, ZS1JHZ; Charl F Botha, ZR6CBG; Johan Botha, ZS6JBG; Hettie Botha, ZS6MMZ; Zacques Eathan Botha ZS6ZB and Warren Pike, ZSL1160.
Any objections to the acceptance of these applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday following this bulletin. The membership of the League currently stands at 1 632 members and 47 affiliated clubs
** Although the weather conditions were not very favourable in some parts of the country for the PEARS VHF/UHF contest, nevertheless, at least 32 logs were submitted reflecting around seven hundred contacts, a lot more than last year. Divisions 2, 4, 5, 6 and V5 participated in the contest on the five VHF and UHF bands and for the first time used all six categories. This year the field stations triumphed from their high sites. The old problem persists and that is the reluctance of many participants to make the effort to submit log sheets. PEARS would like to express their sincere thanks to all those who sent in logs and hopefully enjoyed the contest.
Overall analogue winner:
1st Terence van der Linden, ZS2VDL, 82 075 points
2nd Allan Bowles, ZS2BO, 70 021 points
3rd Alex Gogos, ZR2T, 56 784 points
Longest distance on analogue
144 MHz: Terry Flanagan, ZS2ABB, and Dave Jones, ZS5DJ, - 569 km
Overall digital winner:
1st Andre Botes, ZS2ACP, 24 112 points
2nd Lee Hanegraaf, ZS5LEE, - 7 980 points
3rd Andre van Deventer, ZS2BK, 6 192 points
Longest distance on Digital
50 MHz and 70 MHz: Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ, and Andre Botes, ZS2ACP, 1 086 km
144 MHz: Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ, and Andre van Deventer, ZS2BK, 1 083 km
Divisional analogue winners:
Division 2: Terence van der Linden, ZS2VDL, 82 075 points
Division 4: Rickus De Lange, ZS4A, 46 344 points
Division 5: Dave Jones, ZS5DJ, 15 300 points
Division 6: Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ, 42,007 points
Limited category:
Winner: Barry Nugent, ZS2NF, 2 460 points
Rover category:
1st Dave Higgs, ZS2DH/R, 14 949 points
2nd Andrew Gray, ZS2G/R, 5 858 points
144,400 and 145,500 MHz FM divisional category:
1st Grant Randall, ZS2GT, 70 points
2nd Imo Ferreira, ZS2FF, 30 points
Please note that the complete list of scores and call signs from all the logs will be published on the League website and in the QSX newsletter.
** Do not miss the CTARC Annual Bumper Flea Market. The date of the annual flea market is easy to remember, always the first Saturday in March at the CTARC clubhouse, off Laidlaw Lane in Rondebosch. This year it is on 5 March, opening at 12:00 for sellers to set up and 13:00 for buyers. Cold refreshments and snacks will be available throughout the afternoon.
There will be a small charge to sellers this year of R10 to help defray our costs but no charge to buyers and browsers. This small fee also allows sellers to park their vehicles on the grassy area directly in front of the clubhouse. As this area is limited in size, buyers and non-sellers will be requested to park in the paved parking area of Laidlaw road, which is immediately adjacent to the flea market area, only a few metres away. Sellers are reminded to please bring their own table if they do not intend to sell out of their boot as the club has only a very limited amount of tables.
There is no time like the present to start sorting out the shack and boxing up those unused and surplus items. Bring them along to the CTARC Annual Flea Market and convert them into instant cash. Who knows, you may even find better or more interesting toys at the Flea Market that you can then take home with you and have great fun with. Start planning now and look forward to seeing all of those friendly smiles of our fellow Amateurs from around the Cape. See you there on the 5th of March.
** On Sunday 21 February, the Zululand Amateur Radio Club ran a special event station on 40 m. All the stations contacted were promised a special event QSL card. The only source of addresses the Club has is from the SARL Call Book and all the QSL cards were sent to the addresses found there. If your information on the Call Book is not up to date, please do not complain when you do not receive your QSL card.
** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at low levels. Currently only a few small sunspots are visible and none of them poses a threat for serious solar flares.
If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 17. The 20 to 10 m bands will provide lots DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Now for the diary of events
28 February The SARL Digital Contest
29 February the Leap Year Challenge
29 February - the closing date for your Hall of Fame nominations
1 March closing date for AWA CW logs
2 March closing date for logs for the Youth Sprint to zs4bs@netactive.co.za
2 March closing date for logs for the Leap Year Challenge to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za
5 March the CTARC Annual Flea Market
6 March the SARL Hamnet 40 m Contest
6 March closing date for logs for the digital contest
13 March closing date for logs for the Hamnet contest
To end this bulletin, a recap of our main news item this morning.
The SARL Digital contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa and will run from 13:00 UTC to 16:00 UTC this afternoon with PSK and RTTY on 80, 40 and 20 metres. The exchange is a RST report and a sequential serial number starting at 001. Logs, in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled your call sign Digital Contest, must be submitted by 6 March 2016, e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za. Get all the details in the 2016 Blue Book
** Clubs and individuals are 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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS, edited by Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, and read by
.
73 and 88, thank you for listening
/EX
