SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 12 MARCH 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 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 League’s web site.

This audio bulletin can be downloaded from the League’s 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,

RADIO AMATEUR EXAMINATION DETAILS FOR MAY 2017

WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM AMATEUR RADIO IN THE FUTURE

and

FIRST MOON BOUNCE USING OPERA

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

** Radio Amateur Examination details for May 2017. This year sees a major change in the day of the exam. In the past, the exam was always written on Thursday evenings, but this year the RAE will be written on Saturday mornings starting from 10:00 to 13:00. This should make it easier for the candidates who cannot always make the exam, due to work pressures. Registration for the exam opened on 21 January and will close on Saturday 15 April. The exam will be written on Saturday 20 May. To register, go to www.sarl.org.za/public/licences/rae.asp 

** The Wireless Institute of Australia recently stated that there is a decline in the overall number of radio amateurs in their country and currently stands at 14 619 licensees. It is believed that amateur radio has been at a crossroads for the last several years and they continue to wait and see what the future will really hold in store for the service. The ARRL, TAPR, AMSAT and other technology-oriented groups must take the initiative and forge ahead into the future on our own. We need to be proactive to change and challenges, and not take a position of "wait and see" for attitudes to change. There will be those members in all of our organizations that will hate what the future will bring, but history and experience shows us that adopting a position of limited or no change only means that the change and growth will occur elsewhere.

We should encourage the younger generation to get involved in amateur radio to experiment and research the frequencies on VHF and above where the future lies. The future focus will also be on space communications and within ten years or so amateur communications with settlements on the Moon should be possible and later with Mars. The new challenges will have far greater appeal and be more exciting for the younger ones. The SKA, the greatest science project in this century, will be on stream in our own backyard, the Karoo and the Outback in Australia. All this should attract many keen, as well as technically minded students, to amateur radio again. The Hammies project in South Africa should be encouraged.

** St Patrick's Day Activity hopes to "Turn the Bands Green": Radio amateurs around the world will celebrate St Patrick's Day on the air through the St. Patrick Award http://stpatrickaward.webs.com/. "We hope to turn the bands green," the event's sponsors said. The St. Patrick Award activity will get under way at 12:00 UTC on 16 March and continue until 12:00 UTC on 18 March. Radio amateurs or SWLs are invited to take part. Awards will be in four categories: SPD Station Award (for registered stations); Fixed Station Award; Mobile Station Award, and Short Wave Listener Award. Register to be an official participating station by visiting http://tinyurl.com/zb3tkn7.

** The SARL News Team has a vacancy for an Afrikaans bulletin recorder in Team 2. If you are interested, please contact Dennis, ZS4BS, at zs4bs@netactive.co.za

You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League. Did you show amateur radio to someone this week?

** On Tuesday 7 March, Luis, EA5DOM, and Jose, EA3HMJ, made a test using the amateur radio weak-signal data mode Opera for 1 296 MHz Moon Bounce (EME). Luis, EA5DOM posted the following, “We are both using a small 180 cm offset dish. Jose was running 400 w, so he was transmitting and I was trying to decode. The trace was visible but too weak for an Op05 decode. So I tried Op1, switching band to 70 MHz. After some trying we got one decode at -24 dB. I switched to Op2 and tried a few times without success. I was having problems keep accurate tracking, so the signal was not optimal and close to the decoding limit. We will keep testing, but at least one decode was worth the effort. 

** Bethulie is now on the VHF map. Terence van der Linde, ZS4VDL (ex ZS2VDL), has retired and settled at his home in Bethulie and he is going to put Bethulie on the VHF map. Terence is still very keen on 144 MHz long distance operation and would be interested in running skeds in the future. He is equipped with a 12 element horizontal Yagi, fed with low loss thick co-ax cable pointing south and 200 Watts on 144 MHz SSB. Terence was the overall analogue winner of the PEARS VHF/UHF Contest on several occasions in the past.

** Beacon News. Leon Uys, ZR6LU, donated a Beacon Kit to the Hammies ARC at the National Amateur Radio Centre yesterday. The Hammies plan to run the beacon on 20 metres using WSPR and CW. Photos of the construction of the beacon will be included in Radio ZS. Thank you Leon!

** SDR workshop in Cape Town on 22 April. Following on a very successful symposium on Software Defined Radio held in Gauteng towards the end of last year, a similar event will be presented by AMSAT SA in the Cape on Saturday 22 April 2017 at the Bellville Campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. To register visit http://www.amsatsa.org.za/

** The Overberg Amateur Radio Club will be holding their AGM at 10:30 on Saturday 18 March at the QTH of John, ZS1DI, and Judy, ZS1JEG, just outside of Stanford. There will be the usual bring and braai afterwards and visitors are welcome. For further details you can contact Andre, ZS1AZ, on 072 729 1680 or Sam, ZS1OR, on 073 250 0428. We hope to see you there.

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at very low levels. For the past four days, there were no sunspots visible. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around one. The 15 to 30 m bands will provide lots of DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

Now for the diary of events

18 March – Overberg ARC AGM at Stanford
25 and 26 March – the CQ WPX SSB Contest
27 March – closing date for Radio ZS articles
1 April – RaDAR Challenge
8 April – Autumn QRP Contest
15 April – closing date for RAE registration
22 April – SDR Workshop in the Cape

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

Radio Amateur Examination details for May 2017. This year sees a major change in the day of the exam. In the past, the exam was always written on Thursday evenings, but this year the RAE will be written on Saturday mornings starting from 10:00 to 13:00. This should make it easier for the candidates who cannot always make the exam, due to work pressures.  Registration for the exam opened on 21 January and will close on Saturday 15 April. The exam will be written on Saturday 20 May. To register, go to www.sarl.org.za/public/licences/rae.asp 

** 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 4 895 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