SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2017

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 the country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay.

This audio bulletin may be downloaded from the League’s website at www.sarl.org.za whereyou 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 can sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

IN THE NEWS TODAY

SARL DISCUSSES DRAFT FREQUENCY PLAN AT PUBLIC HEARING

SHOULD RADIO AMATEURS BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE INCREASING RF NOISE FLOOR

RADIO ZS

COMPETITION NEWS

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items.

** SARL President, Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL, and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, presented the SARL position on the draft frequency plan at the ICASA public hearing on Thursday 9 February. There are a number of issues in the draft plan that the SARL was unhappy about including cutting back the 160 metre band to only 40 kHz and issues around the 5 MHz band.

During question time ICASA requested the SARL to provide additional motivation to support the SARL request to make a 100 kHz allocation available to radio amateurs from 5350 - 5450 kHz. The 100 kHz allocation was the African bloc position at WRC15. South Africa was the proposer to SADC and ultimately the African Telecommunication Union for the support of this position when the Agenda item was discussed at WRC15. The SARL will submit additional documents in time for the 17 February deadline.

The SARL submission to ICASA is available on the SARL web under the ICASA heading. It is expected that ICASA will finalise the frequency to meet the 31 March deadline.

** SHOULD RADIO AMATEURS BE CONCERNED ABOUT THE INCREASING RF NOISE FLOOR?This question was discussed at the first 2017 Skype meeting of the SARL Regulatory Workgroup also known as the SRWG. The workgroup believe that the RF noise floor is of interest to probably all radio amateurs, as many operate at low signal-to-noise ratios. Many amateurs will be aware of rising RF noise levels in recent years from nearby sources of noise. It is a complex issue that includes many facets such as noise generated by geyser controllers, LED, CFL and neon lights, power supplies and many other devices and systems. The SWRG is planning to write a number of tutorials on the subject and to engage the SABS Technical Committee TC73 EMC group, who meet this week, to make it an emerging concern that requires urgent attention.

The SARL is also planning to host a workshop at the NARC to develop a detailed plan of action. This will be an open meeting. Details will be published as soon as the date has been finalised.

** The closing date for articles for the March 2017 issue of Radio ZS is Wednesday 22 February 2017. Afrikaans and English articles are welcome and may be sent in MS-Word or OpenOffice Writer format to radiozs@sarl.org.za. Please send graphics and photographs separately and ensure that your photograph is 1 MB or smaller in size.

The Editor is always looking for photos of amateur radio in action that can be used for the cover of Radio ZS. Such a photo must be in portrait.

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You are tuned to a news bulletin of the South African Radio league read by .................

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** The SARL youth Sprint will once again take place on Saturday 18 February between 08:00 and 10:00 UTC. This is a fun activityto celebrate the youth in amateur radio and to promote contacts between the youth. Call CQ Sprint to take part in this phone-only activity between 7 063 and 7 100 kHz as well as 7 130 and 7200 kHz. Exchange is a RS report and the age of the operator.

More information on age groups as well as scoring may be found in the SARL contest manual.

** Paul ZS6NK, John ZS6JON and Pieter V51PJ pointed their 50 MHz beacons south, which enabled Sporadic-E openings to be detected during the Es season.

According to ZS1TAF a Sporadic-E opening appeared on Monday 16 January 2017 at 20:02 when he copied the ZS6TWB/b for approximately 30 minutes, ZS6JON/b faded in at 20:11 for about 20 minutes. Raoul ZS1C and Willem ZS1WDK reported on Saturday morning 4th February that ZS6JON and ZS6TWB beacons were audible for about an hour In Cape Town via Sporadic-E, they called CQ but no replies.

** Many thanks to Peter Hers, ZS1PHD, for posting the SARL VHF, UHF & Microwave DX Record Table for 2016, which has been updated by ZS2FM. It covers all the bands from 40 MHz up to 47 GHz that were worked in South Africa on both analogue and digital. The Historical SA Analogue Records on VHF & Above have also been updated with the full names of the early amateur radio pioneers of whom many are now Silent Keys and forgotten.

Please check your statistics for errors and advise ZS2FM via email. These records are a challenge for VHF amateurs to emulate and/or break.

** The West Rand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 25 February 2017 at their clubhouse in Kroton street, Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. Bring your surplus and support the vendor on the day. For more information contact Geoff ZS6C 082 546 5546.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at low levels. There is only a single sunspot visible but it is not actively flaring.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 8.

The 15 to 30metre bands will provide lots of DX fun.

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

Diary of Events

Today 12 February –You may still take part in the SARL National Field Day
18 February - SARL Youth Sprint
18 February - SDR Workshop
25 February - West Rand ARC Flea Market
26 February - SARL Digital Contest
4 March - CTARC Bumper Flea Market
5 March - SARL Hamnet 40m Contest

To end this bulletin a quick recap of our main news item:

SARL President, Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL, and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, presented the SARL position on the draft frequency plan at the ICASA public hearing on Thursday 9 February. There are a number of issues in the draft plan that the SARL was unhappy about including cutting back the 160 metre band to only 40 kHz and issues around the 5 MHz band.

That brings us to the end of this bulletin.

Please take note of the following:

** 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 not 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.