PLEASE IGNORE THE PREVIOUS BULLETIN HEREWITH THE CORRECT BULLETIN

SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 05 June 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 may 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 as well as on many VHF and UHF repeaters around our country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay.

This audio bulletin may be downloaded from the League website at www.sarl.org.za where you will find this as well as previous bulletins in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the web page. While you are there, you may sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

IN THE NEWS TODAY

SARL SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING DATE

ICASA OFFICES DAMAGED DURING FIRE

VHF ATTRACTING MORE ATTENTION

PEARS MAKING WAVES

AND THE RESULTS OF THE ZS3 SPRINT

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items

*** In light of the dead end reached during the recent SARL AGM, a Special General Meeting will be held for the express purpose of deciding on the financial statements to be submitted by the treasurer, to approve the budget proposed for the 2016 - 2017 financial year, and to appoint a new SARL Council consisting of the members elected by electronic voting according to rules 16.4

The SGM will be held on Saturday 30 July at the National Amateur Radio Centre. Registration of proxies will start at 9 am. The SGM will start at 10 am.

Call for nominations for the SARL Council Nominations for the SARL council are invited. The prescribed form should be used and be submitted with an Amateur Radio related CV by no later than 25 June to the acting secretary at secretary@sarl.org.za. If more than 10 nominations are received an electronic vote will be held starting on 30 June 2016 (according to rule 16.4).

The financial documents and a proxy form will be available on www.sarl.org.za from 30 June 2016

*** During the course of Monday afternoon a fire broke out at the offices of the Independant Communications Authority of South Africa, ICASA. The building suffered some damage. The ICASA licensing office was partially destroyed. None of the May 2016 examination papers were handed in so they are safe.

We have been informed that the ICASA management are looking for other premises to conduct business from. They will inform the SARL head office where the office are and when we can submit the RAE documentation. There will therefore be a delay in the issue of the licences. Contact the RAE Manager or SARL administration office for further detail.

*** About two years ago Carl Minne, ZS6CBQ, at Krugersdorp started a VHF net early on Saturday and Sunday mornings on 144,300 MHz SSB. From humble beginings the activity grew eventually spreading throughout Gauteng, Limpopo and to the Free State. Many newcomers came on the air with horizontal Yagis, such as Rickus ZS4A at Bethlehem, who within a year progressed to EME.

Mike Kellett, ZS1TAF, started a net in Cape Town on Thursday evenings also on 144,300 MHz SSB. Initially working mainly on vertical antennas but the group is now migrating to horizontal antennae to increase their range.

Other nets include those of Jaco Cronje, ZR6CMG, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings on 145,500 MHz FM using vertical antennas, in Pretoria and two long nets in Port Elizabeth conducted by Al Akers, ZS2U, on 70,200 MHz in the 4 meter band FM on Monday evenings and 52 MHz, 6 metres, FM on Wednesday evenings using vertical polarization.

Recently Andre Grove, ZS3AG, at Kimberley heard CW on 144,300 MHz from Hugo van Zyl, ZS5HV, in Scottburg over a distance of 613 km. He alerted Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ, at Rosh Pinah, Namibia via WhatsApp, who also heard some CW from Hugo, a distance of 1395 km. The VHF paths are there and two-way contacts are imminent during Tropo Ducting propagation.

*** PEARS are at it again, providing radio communications for the PWC Great Zuurberg Terk - a three day mountain bike event held in the picturesque Zuurberg mountains near Addo in the Eastern Cape.

Over the 3 day event PEARS will man 17 different locations, deploy a temporary repeater, and run the Venue Operations Centre where communications between the event organisers, the medics, and the PEARS operators will be controlled by Tony Allen, ZR2TX.

On the social side, the event is a favourite among the PEARS members as the camping and camaraderie around the evening braai fires is a great team builder.

The event started on Friday morning and is currently under way, finishing later today with the prize giving. More information on the event is available at their website www.greatzuurbergtrek.co.za/

Photos will be uploaded to the PEARS facebook page in the next few days - so do pop by and like the page! Log onto Facebook and search for "PE Amateur Radio Society"

You are tuned to a newsbulletin of the South African Radio League. We now turn to news from the League office:

*** Applications for membership of the SARL have been received from the following persons:
ZR6AVR: Andries Petrus van Rooyen (renewal)
ZS6PHS: Pieter Searle Renewal
Any objections to the acceptance of the applications must reach the Secretary before or on the Tuesday after this bulletin.
Membership of the SARL currently stands at 1764 plus 49 affiliated clubs.
The admin office lately received an exceptional number of requests for help with renewing lapsed licenses and retaining old call signs. This is a service available to SARL members. Vonnie negotiates these matters during her weekly visits to ICASA.

*** The ZS3 Sprint was well supported on the 15 May 2016. We received 27 logs (4 more than in 2015) from which FOUR of them were used as controlled logs.

The results are as follows for the hour on the air:
1st: ZS3A Alewyn Muller, 126 points.
2nd: ZS5MAX, Max Rossi, 98 points.
3rd: ZS6YH, Mitchel Mynhardt, 94 points.
The Northern Cape Amateur Radio Club thanks everybody that took part and send in their logs.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels, confirming that we are well passed solar maximum and on a slow road to solar minimum within the next 5 years. All the visible sunspots are currently stable with very little chance for serious solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 9.

The 20 to 15 m bands and will provide lots DX fun.

Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

Before we end this bulletin let us have a look at some upcoming events:

12 June - ZS6 Hammies Sprint
16 June – Youth day
17 June - World QRP Day
21 June – Deadline for July Radio ZS submissions
23 June - South African Radio League Top Band QSO Party
03 July – ZS5 Sprint

To end this mornings bulletin a quick look at our main story this morning:
Monday afternoon saw a fire rip through the licensing offices of ICASA. Fortunately the RAE papers were’nt handed in yet. As a direct result the issue of new licenses will be delayed for May 2016 candidates.

That brings us to the end of this bulletin

** 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; please 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 Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, and read by ..............

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

/EX