SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 24 JUNE 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 a silent key.

It is with deep regret that it must be announced that the key of Willem Munnik, ZS6WDM, went silent on Monday 11 June 2018.

We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

PAUSE

In the news, today:

THE ZS5 SPRINT NEXT SUNDAY

SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE RESULTS OF THE 2017 CQ DX MARATHON

and

BUILDING AN RF DIRECTION FINDING ROBOT

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

THE ZS5 SPRINT NEXT SUNDAY

The ZS5 Sprint is a fun activity to promote contacts between radio amateurs in KwaZulu-Natal and radio amateurs in Southern African countries and will be run from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC on Sunday 1 July 2018. The Sprint is a phone and CW contest on the 40-metre band with CW activity from 7 000 to 7 040 kHz and phone activity from 7 063 to 7 100 kHz and 7 130 to 7 200 kHz.

For stations in KZN, the exchange is a RS or RST report and your town name or abbreviation. For stations outside KZN, the exchange is a RS or RST report and your provincial or country abbreviation. Scoring for KZN stations is 1 point per QSO with a station in KZN and 2 points with a station outside KZN. Scoring for other stations is 2 points per QSO with a station in KZN and 1 point per QSO with any other station. QSOs with the Highway ARC, ZS5HAM, the Durban ARC, ZS5D, the Hibiscus Coast ARC, ZS5HAC, the Zululand ARC, ZS5ZLB, the Midlands ARC, ZS5PMB, or the Noord Natal Amateurradioklub, ZS5NAK, is worth 5 points each. Only one QSO per station is allowed.

Logs, in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled "my call sign ZS5 Sprint," shall be submitted by 9 July 2018 by e-mail to zs5contest@harc.org.za

NEW WRTC AWARDS - WRTC SPRINT

The World Radiosport Team Championship takes place from 12:00 UTC on 14 July until 12:00 UTC on 15 July in parallel to the IARU HF Championship. Sixty-three teams will be competing from identical sites south of Berlin. QSO partners can directly support the contestants with QSOs. To stimulate contacts with the WRTC stations, five awards have been created. The WRTC Most QSO (MQ) award honours the total number of QSOs a station achieves with the WRTC participants. Based on 63 WRTC competing teams, 5 bands and 2 modes, a maximum number of 630 QSOs will be possible. Rankings will be formed according to the 29 qualification regions. The top-scoring station from each region will be awarded a special prize. Visit www.wrtc2018.de/ for more information.

SOUTH AFRICANS IN THE RESULTS OF THE 2017 CQ DX MARATHON

The results of the 2017 CQ DX Marathon have been released and a few South African radio amateurs are mentioned.

In the Unlimited Class, Gert Rautenbach, ZR6GR, worked 218 countries and 34 zones for a score of 252. This places him at number 3 in the world on phone, third overall in Africa, Zone 38 winner and South Africa winner. Mike Stokes, ZS6AI worked 177 countries and 38 zones for a score of 215 and fifth place overall in Africa and Geoff Levey, ZS6C worked 176 countries and 2 zones for a score of 178.

In the Limited Class, Cor Rademeyer, ZS6CR worked 76 countries and 17 zones for a score of 93. In the Formula Class - 100 Watt, Jan Grobbelaar, ZS6K using digital modes, worked 12 countries and 8 zones for a score of 20 and the Africa winner for digital modes. The West Rand and the Secunda ARCs are mentioned in the Club score listing.

Well done to Gert and Jan!

ZS9HQ AND THE IARU HF CHAMPIONSHIPS

The IARU HF Championship is taking place over the weekend of 14 and 15th July. The SARL takes part in this contest every year using the call sign ZS9HQ. The object is to contact as many other amateurs as possible, especially IARU member society HQ stations, around the world. This is an 24 hour contest so there are lots of slots available. The 24 hours are divided up into hourly slots. If you are interested in being part of the ZS9HQ team, you can operate from your home QTH, please contact Geoff Levey, ZS6C at contest@sarl.org.za.

You are listening to a news Bulletin of the South African Radio League.

THANK YOU FOR THE RADIO ZS SEARCH

The Editor of Radio ZS thanks those members who contacted him following the SARL Communication about an article from 1981 required by a Dutch Radio Amateur. The article in question was found in the July 1983 issue of Radio ZS by Gert Botha, ZS6GC, who scanned it and sent it to the editor. Georges Schleger also provided a scanned copy, ZS1II. Thanks also to Neil Holmes, ZS2AI, Nico Oelofse, ZS4N, and Dudley Garner, ZR6AFT for their responses. The article has been sent to Stefan, PA3ADJ in Molenhoek.

On the Radio ZS download page on the League web site, you will find copies of Radio ZS from the July 1947 issue up to the June 2018 issue. But there are numerous gaps in the listing, for example the July 1983 issue, which we would like to fill. Have a look at the list and if you have any of the missing issues, please contact Geoff Levey, ZS6C to find out how the issue can be scanned and uploaded. Geoff can be contacted at glevey@gmail.com

BUILDING AN RF DIRECTION FINDING ROBOT

The RTL-SDR site highlights the work of Humpelstilzchen in getting a robot to drive towards a 433 MHz beacon transmitter. The experiment used a 433 MHz module to send out an FSK beacon. On the robot, two antennas are used for the time difference of arrival/pseudo-doppler direction finding technique and PIN diodes are used to rapidly switch between the antennas. A GNU Radio script running on a HummingBoard single board computer computes the TDOA/pseudo-doppler algorithm. Read the RTL-SDR post at www.rtl-sdr.com/building-an-rf-direction-finding-robot-with-an-rtl-sdr/

NEW IARU MEMBER SOCIETY

On 28 May, the IARU Member Societies completed voting on the admission of the "St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Amateur Radio Society" (SKNAARS) to the International Amateur Radio Union as the representative of the radio amateurs of the Federation of St Christopher St Kitts) and Nevis. SKNAARS (https://sknaars.weebly.com/) does not claim to represent Anguilla, which is already represented in the IARU by the Anguilla Amateur Radio Society; the inclusion of Anguilla in the name of SKNAARS dates to an earlier time. With 56 affirmative votes required for admission there were 62 affirmative votes cast, with no dissenting votes. SKNAARS thus becomes a member of the IARU and of IARU Region 2.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at low levels. Currently there are 3 sunspots visible with AR2715 being the source of C-class solar flares.
If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around seven. The 20 and 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:

until 25 June – the SARL Top Band QSO Party
30 June – the end of SARL Financial Year and International Asteroid Day
1 July – the ZS5 Sprint and the start of the SARL Financial Year
2 July – the closing Date for Top Band Logs
7 July – the SARL Newbie QSO Party
9 July – the closing date for ZS5 Sprint Logs
14 July – the registration for the October RAE opens and the West Rand AGM
14 and 15 July – the IARU HF Championships and WRTC 2018
15 July – Remembrance of the Battle of Delville Wood – 15 to 20 July 1916
16 July – the closing date Newbie QSO Party Logs
17 July – Provincial Schools Open
21 July – the Winter QRP Contest and Pretoria ARC Flea Market
22 July – the ZS2 Sprint

To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:

The ZS5 Sprint is a fun activity to promote contacts between radio amateurs in KwaZulu-Natal and radio amateurs in Southern African countries and will be run from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC on Sunday 1 July 2018. The Sprint is a phone and CW contest on the 40-metre band with CW activity from 7 000 to 7 040 kHz and phone activity from 7 063 to 7 100 kHz and 7 130 to 7 200 kHz.

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 Emile Venter, ZS6V, edited by Brian Utterson, ZS6AE and read by ……………………................

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

/EX