The news team received three items that must be included in the bulletin!
SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2018
Good morning and welcome to the weekly news bulletin of the South African Radio League read by ...................................................... [your name, call sign and QTH]
The South African Radio League broadcasts a news bulletin each Sunday in Afrikaans as well as English, at 08:15 and 08:30 Central African Time respectively, on HF as well as on various VHF and UHF repeaters around the country. The bulletin is relayed via Echolink by ZS6JPL. A podcast is available on the League website.
Audio and text bulletins may be downloaded from the League website at www.sarl.org.za where you can also sign up to receive future bulletins by e-mail.
We start the bulletin this morning with news of two silent keys.
The Port Elizabeth Amateur Radio Club (PEARS) regrets to announce the passing of Trevor Scarr ZS2AE, at the age of 85 after a brief struggle with lung cancer. Trevor was a radio ham for many decades, and he was instrumental in establishing the earlier club repeaters, which subsequently morphed into the Eastern Cape Repeater Network. In recognition of this and his other contributions to the hobby, he was a recipient of the prestigious Jack Twine Award. Trevor was a man of many talents. Upon his retirement he relocated to a retirement complex, where he became the full-time organist at the weekly church services. His passing has left a hole in many places and lives. Our condolences to his family.
We extend our sincere condolences to Chris, ZS2AAW, Vanessa, ZS2VS, family and friends.
It is with great sadness that we report that Scamp Porter ex-ZS6SMP passed away suddenly on 19 January in Cape Town. Scamp was a member of the Sandton ARC for many years. Under his previous call sign ZR6SR he was active on VHF and was a keen and important member of the Sandton Club's team which mounted a field station at Breedt's Neck in the Magaliesberg to participate twice-annually in the VHF/UHF contest.
Few people in amateur radio were aware that Scamp had a very successful previous life in motor racing, coming 1st together with John Conchie in the Saloon car category in the first 9-hour endurance race at Kyalami in 1961. He went on to develop saloon car racing and rally driving for Renault and driving in the Total Economy Run. He later moved to Toyota, and finally hung up his racing helmet in 1972. Scamp retired from running his own workshop a few years ago and moved to Cape Town where he worked with his son Colin, now ZS1RS. He was always an absolute gentleman with a great sense of humour matched to an all-encompassing smile.
We extend our sincere condolences to Colin and Elmien.
PAUSE
In the news, today:
SARL PRESIDENT TO MEET BOUVET ISLAND DXPEDITION CREW IN CAPE TOWN
A NEW HAMMIES CLUB FORMED
and
EXPERIMENTAL HOME BREW EQUIPMENT DOES NOT REQUIRE TYPE APPROVAL
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
SARL President, Nico van Rensburg ZS6QL will meet with the crew of the Bouvet Island DXpedition in Cape Town today during a function arranged by the local radio amateurs. The DXpedition had to be cancelled due to adverse weather conditions making it impossible to fly with a helicopter to land on the island. Their ship suffered an engine failure and it was decided with only one engine operating to sail for Cape Town as that was the closest safe destination.
LAST CHANCE TO BOOK FOR SDR WORKSHOP IN DURBAN.
The closing date for bookings is on 23 February 2018. For details visit www.amsatsa.org.za. This a joint AMSATSA, SARL and Highway Amateur Radio Club event.
A NEW HAMMIES CLUB FORMED
There is a new Hammies Club in central South Africa. Congratulations to the ZS4ZU Hammies Club which has been formed by the Welkom Radio Club, ZS4WRC. Jacques Louw, ZS4WW, is the convenor of ZS4ZU. SARL News wishes Jacques and the Welkom team all the best.
SARL DIGITAL CONTEST NEXT SUNDAY
The aim of the SARL Digital contest on Sunday 25 February is to establish as many contacts as possible between radio amateurs in Southern Africa using the FT8 / RTTY modes. The contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa and runs from 14:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC with activity between 3 580 to 3 600 kHz, 7 040 to 7 060 kHz and 14 070 to 14 099 kHz.
A station may be contacted twice on each band once on RTTY, once on FT8. The exchange is a RSQ report and the first 4 digits of your grid square e.g. KG30. Contacts with stations in Areas 1 to 7 are worth 3 points. Contacts with stations in the rest of the world are worth 1 point. Area 1 to 6 equals ZS1 to ZS6, Area 7 is Swaziland, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Angola, St Helena Island, Tristan da Cunha Island, SANAE base, Reunion Island, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mayotte and the Comoros.
Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet and labelled "my call sign Digital Contest," must be sent by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za by Monday 5 March 2018.
EXPERIMENTAL HOME BREW EQUIPMENT DOES NOT REQUIRE TYPE APPROVAL
Experimental Home brew equipment developed and built by radio amateurs for their own use in terms of the conditions of their license will not require type approval, ICASA agreed at the quarterly SARL/ICASA liaison meeting held on Thursday last week. The exemption of the type approval process is ongoing and will only be finalised in ICASA's 2018/2019 financial year which starts on 1 April.
The approval and publication of the band plan was again discussed. The SARL expressed its dissatisfaction and asked that the amateur radio frequency table be unlocked form the overall band plan as it is now being unnecessarily delayed due to ongoing disagreements between the Department of Telecommunication and Postal Service and ICASA over other issues in the National Frequency Plan. ICASA responded by confirming that they are doing everything possible to expedite the matter and indicated that they and DTPS would meet soon to finalise the plan. The final approval lies with the DTPS Minster Dr Cwele.
The proposal that CRASA, the body of SADC regulators, accept the CEPT guest licensing arrangement will be discussed at the CRASA AGM scheduled for early April 2018. ICASA said they will support the proposal. Radio amateurs in SADC countries could assist by talking to their regulators and explain the benefits of the CEPT agreement. For any documents, send an e-mail to admin@sarl.org.za.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
IN THE 1920S AMATEURS WERE LICENCED ONLY AS RADIO EXPERIMENTERS
In the 1920s amateurs were licensed only as radio experimenters, even in South Africa by the PMG. This was the time that amateur radio made its greatest contribution to radio science with the discovery of DX operation on shortwaves. In 1927 the ITU (then known as the International Radiotelegraph Union) at its Conference in Washington, allocated special bands to the five recognized services; Broadcasting, Maritime Mobile, Fixed, Mobile and Amateur. The radio amateurs were rewarded with six bands for their pioneering work on shortwaves.
As time passed, so a new breed of radio amateur started to change the face of amateur radio to that of a hobby where innovation and experimentation was no longer that important. In modern times, shortwave broadcasting and other commercial services started to desert the shortwave bands for greener pastures on satellites in the microwave spectrum where signals were more reliable and constant. Amateur Radio now has to play a catch-up game if they wish to survive the 21st Century, bearing in mind that the modern generation is very computer literate and SDR would appeal to them, and they only need a type of amateur radio that is more attractive to them. Amateur Radio must make the necessary changes to meet future demands and become part of the new radio world again. Fortunately, there are many dedicated amateurs in the USA and Germany who are doing some brilliant work on the amateur Microwave bands.
ON MY WAVELENGTH
Listen to Op my golflengte every Wednesday evening broadcast on Pretoria FM between 22:30 and 23:00 CAT during Martin Jansen's late-night program. The first programme in the series will already be broadcast on 7 March 2018. The aim of the programme is to introduce the world of the Radio Amateur and the amateur radio service to the listeners. The programme content will consist of news, views, reviews and interviews of everything pertaining to amateur radio. Tune in on 104.2 FM, DSTV channel 887 or listen on the internet at www.pretoriafm.co.za to "Op my golflengte" every Wednesday evening.
WEST RAND AMATEUR RADIO CLUB FLEA MARKET
The West Rand Amateur Radio Club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 CAT on Saturday 24 February 2018 at their clubhouse in Kroton street, Weltevreden Park, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. Bring your surplus and support the vendors on the day. For more information, contact Phillip, ZS6PVT, on 083 267 3835.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. Sunspot AR2699 is in a state of decay with no threat of major flaring. 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.
Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:
18 February the ARRL DX CW Competition
22 February closing date for the March Radio ZS
24 February the West Rand ARC Flea Market
25 February the SARL Digital Competition
3 March the SDR Workshop in Durban and the Cape Town ARC Bumper Flea Market
3 and 4 March the ARRL DX SSB Contest
4 March the SARL Hamnet 40 m Contest
10 - 11 March the SARL VHF/UHF Analogue Contest and the 82nd RSGB Commonwealth Contest
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
There is a new Hammies Club in central South Africa. Congratulations to the ZS4ZU Hammies Club which has been formed by the Welkom Radio Club, ZS4WRC. Jacques Louw, ZS4WW, is the convenor of ZS4ZU. SARL News wishes Jacques and the Welkom team all the best.
This concludes our bulletin for this morning.
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 program, 'Amateur Radio Today' at 10:00 Central African Time. The program 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; 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 Emile Venter, ZS6V, edited by
and read by
................
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
