SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 15 APRIL 2018
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 Central African Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 Central African Time in English, on HF as well as on many VHF and UHF repeaters around the country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS6JPL for a relay. A podcast is available from the League’s web site.
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 with news of a silent key
It is with sadness that we report the passing of Barney van Eeden, ZS6BLL, on Friday 6 April 2018. Barney was a long-standing member of the SARL and of the Antique Wireless Association and he was an ardent AM MF player. He will be sadly missed.
We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends
PAUSE
In the news today:
BIGGEST ATTENDANCE AT THE 2018 SARL AGM IN PRETORIA
SARL AWARDS PRESENTED AT THE AWARDS DINNER
and
TWO LOCAL CONTESTS NEXT WEEKEND
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
BIGGEST ATTENDANCE AT THE 2018 SARL AGM IN PRETORIA
The 2018 SARL AGM was opened at 09:17 on Saturday 14 April 2018 by Nico, ZS6QL, the SARL President. Colin, ZS6COL, presented the registration information and mentioned that the League has 1 590 paid up members of which 107 members were present at the meeting and they carried 244 proxies giving 351 votes. This is 22,2% of the membership. The 107 members present is the highest attendance in a very long time.
The meeting stood for a moment of silence in memory of the silent keys. The minutes of the 2017 AGM were accepted and ZS6GM presented the financial report, the budget for the next year and the new subscriptions. All three items were accepted by the meeting. The subscription rates for 2018/19 has not been changed. Invoices will be sent out in May 2018.
The nine motions lead to some discussions by the meeting. The result of the motions is – Motion 1, 2 and 3 were adopted. Amendments to Motion 4 and 6 were adopted. Motion 5, 8 and 9 were withdrawn and Motion 7 was lost.
Louw Erasmus, ZS6LME, Chris Turner, ZS6GM, Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT, Dennis Green, ZS4BS and Glynn Chamberlain, ZS6GLN were elected to Council and will serve until the 2020 AGM. The meeting received two proposals for the 2019 AGM – from the BO-Karoo Arc to host it in Kimberley and from the Boland ARC to host it in Cape Town. The two Clubs have been asked to submit a formal proposal and then Council will ask members to vote for a venue via the electronic voting system later in the year. The meeting closed at 13:38.
At the first Council meeting of the new Council, Nico, ZS6QL was elected as president, with Chris, ZS6GM as vice president, Cliff ZS6BOX, as treasurer and Dennis, ZS4BS as secretary.
The members spent the afternoon looking at the displays and buying amateur radio equipment and parts from the dealers and the flea market at the venue. Eddie, ZS6BNE, completed a FM QSO via the AO-91 satellite and then a SSB and CW QSO via the AO-7 satellite from his portable station at the AGM.
SARL AWARDS PRESENTED AT THE AWARDS DINNER
The list of awards presented last night at the SARL Awards Dinner is too long to include in the bulletin. In the coming week the SARL Secretary will be sending out a communication about the AGM and the Awards Dinner. The guest speaker at the dinner was Hennie Maas of the “Sterre en Planete” programme and we were honoured to have HE Helene Budliger Artieda, the Swiss Ambassador to South Africa at the dinner.
Honorary Life membership of the SARL was bestowed on Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL and Dick Stratford, ZS6RO. The Willie Wilson Gold Badge was awarded to Mike Bosch, ZS2FM, Chris Gryffenberg, ZS6COG and Louw Erasmus, ZS6LME
The President's Award was awarded to Colin de Villiers, ZS6COL and Sam Ford, ZS6BRZ, while the Icom Excellence Award, the "premier" award of the SARL was awarded to Alex Artieda ZS6EME. The Hamnet Shield was awarded to Roy Walsh, ZS3RW.
Two new trophies were also awarded. The Brian Jones, ZS6BV, SOTA ZS Award - this is a new award from ZS SOTA for the South African amateur who contributed most towards the ZS SOTA programme in the past year. The award was handed to husband and wife Sid, ZS5AYC and Adele Tyler, ZS5APT.
The SAATI Annual Technology Award was handed to the members of the Kletskous team:
Hannes Coetzee ZS6BZP; Brian McKenzie, ZS6BNM; Fritz Sutherland, ZS6FSJ; Leon Lessing, ZS6LMG; Jacques Roux, ZR1ADC; Deon Coetzee, ZS1DE; Francois Oberholzer; Frik Wolff, ZS6FZ; Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV
Congratulations to all the recipients.
THE 2018 SARL ANNUAL REPORT
The 2018 SARL Annual Report is available for download from the AGM document page in the Members Only section of the League website. Here you can read what the Council, Working Groups and Co-ordinators have done over the past year.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE RESULTS OF THE HAMNET 40 M SIMULATED EMERGENCY CONTEST
The results of the Hamnet 40 m Simulated Emergency Contest held on Sunday 4 March 2018 have been released.
In the single operator stationary mobile category, Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY took first place with 195 points followed by F da Silva, ZS1ZV with 90 points and Abraham Bosman, ZS6AVI with 40 points
In the single operator portable category, Brian Jones, ZS6BV took top honours with 1 296 points, followed by Al Akkers, ZS2U with 876 points and HAMNET KZN, ZS5DCC with 700 points
The single operator base station category was won by Jan Botha, ZS4JAN with 1 568 points, followed by the Port Elizabeth ARS, ZS2PE with 1 078 points and Hugo Ras, ZS2HR with 996 points.
Thank you to everyone who participated and to those who submitted log sheets. The full set of results will be published in HF Happenings.
TWO LOCAL CONTESTS NEXT WEEKEND
The Autumn QRP Contest runs from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC on Saturday 21 April 2018 with SSB and CW activity and power of 5 watts (PEP) output or less. There are no antenna restrictions and a station may be worked once per band per mode. The first hour is limited to the 40-m band only, the remaining two hours the contesters are free to use any HF (non-WARC) band as they see fit.
The exchange is a RS(T) and your Grid locator. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet and labelled “my call sign QRP Contest,” shall be submitted by 28 April 2018 by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za.
The ZS4 Sprint is a fun activity to promote contacts between radio amateurs in the Free State and radio amateurs in Southern African countries and takes to the air from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC on Sunday 22 April 2018. This is a phone and CW contest on the 40-metre band with SSB activity between 14:00 - 15:00 UTC on 7 063 - 7 100 and 7 130 - 7 200 kHz and CW activity from 15:00 - 16:00 UTC on 7 000 to 7 040 kHz
Logs, in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled “my call sign ZS4 Sprint,” shall be submitted by 30 April 2018 by e-mail to zs4srk@gmail.com. A certificate will be awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places in both categories.
Please consult the 2018 SARL Blue Book for all the information on these three contests.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at very low levels. There is currently only a tiny sunspot visible and no flaring activity is expected. 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 may provide lots of DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:
16 April – closing date for SARL VHF/UHF Digital Contest logs.
18 April – World Amateur Radio Day.
21 April – the Autumn QRP Contest.
22 April – the ZS4 Sprint
5 May – the SDR Workshop at the NARC
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
The 2018 SARL AGM was opened at 09:17 on Saturday 14 April 2018 by Nico, ZS6QL, the SARL President. There were 107 members present at the meeting and they carried 244 proxies giving 351 votes. In the coming week the SARL Secretary will be sending out a SARL Communication about the AGM and the Awards Dinner.
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 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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS/6, and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
