SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 29 JULY 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. 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.
In the news, today:
SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE HF PHONE CONTEST ON SUNDAY 5 AUGUST
SOUTH AFRICA TO HOST YOUNGSTERS ON THE AIR PARTICIPANTS IN AUGUST
and
THE SARL YL SPRINT ON 9 AUGUST
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE HF PHONE CONTEST ON SUNDAY 5 AUGUST
The aim of the SARL HF Contests is for participants to contact as many amateurs in Southern Africa as possible on the 20, 40 and 80 metre amateur bands. There are several trophies to be won for each of the contest as well as for overall results.
The SARL HF Phone Contest will be run from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC on Sunday 5 August 2018 with activity between 14 125 and 14 300 kHz; 7 063 and 7 100, 7 130 and 7 200 kHz, as well as 3 603 and 3 650, 3 700 and 3 800 kHz. The exchange is a RS report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. Each QSO counts 1 point and you can claim points for each area worked on each band as well as stations worked on all three bands. Please read the rules in the 2018 SARL Blue Book before the contest. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet labelled “my call sign HF Phone” by 13 August 2018 by e-mail to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za.
The Silent Keys Memorial SSB Trophy is awarded to the amateur who achieves the highest score; the Joseph White Trophy is awarded to the amateur who achieves the highest score on any one band, and the AKYAB Trophy is awarded to the amateur who achieves the highest score in his or her first year of phone (and this amateur must have received his or her licence between 1 September 2017 and 5 August 2018). There is also a youth and YL trophy for participation in all three contests.
SOUTH AFRICA TO HOST YOUNGSTERS ON THE AIR PARTICIPANTS IN AUGUST
With less than two weeks to go, this year's participants will be packing their bags for the annual YOTA 2018 event hosted by the SARL in South Africa. 28 teams from various countries in IARU Region 1, including seven from Africa, will participate. YOTA 2018 starts on 8 August. Every year YOTA enables young people from different nationalities with a passion for amateur radio and technology to come together to discuss and share ideas about amateur radio and its future, forge new friendships, and learn new skills.
The programme planned for this fun filled week in South Africa will not just focus on teaching individual skills but look at empowering the group to become mentors in their own countries. The participants will experience a variety of amateur radio activities such as building a radio kit, hands-on introduction to SDR, building model CubeSats which will be launched into near-space, and participating in launching and tracking a high-altitude balloon, with various other radio equipment onboard, and honing their communication skills in operating the ZS9YOTA special event radio station. They will learn more about RaDAR (Rapidly Deployable Amateur Radio) principles, including hands on training on working amateur satellites and a few excellent short presentations on several amateur radio topics.
In addition to the amateur radio activities the programme for the week includes an excursion to a game reserve to experience the African wild life and South African countryside.
Hosting an event of this magnitude is expensive, and we sincerely thank those who have already contributed to the future of amateur radio by donating to YOTA 2018. We welcome any contributions which can be made via PayPal on the webpage www.zs9yota.co.za or an EFT to the SARL account with your callsign and YOTA as reference.
THE AUGUST RADIO ZS
The August issue of Radio ZS will be available for download from the League web site on Tuesday morning 31 July. In this issue you can read about SA radio amateurs aiming to link up with scientists, WPT-EV - the end of shortwave and how the sunspot cycle is more intricate than previously thought. For the homebrewers we look at a compact multiband dipole, a VHF and UHF rhombic antenna design for SOTA/POTA, a CW QRP transceiver for the 20 m band, and information about the 23 cm band. We also look at the radio equipment used in the cave rescue in Thailand, and Roger Davis takes us down memory lane in the Museum Piece.
UPDATING THE VHF/UHF AND MICROWAVE TABLE OF RECORDS
Paul Smit, ZS6NK who manages the SARL VHF/UHF and Microwaves Record Table has changed the format of the table and it now includes information per ZS call area. Paul invites amateurs to download the record table and send updates so that a more accurate reflection of the activities per division can be shown. Send your updates to zssixnk@gmail.com
You are listening to a news Bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE ZULULAND ARC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The AGM of the Zululand Amateur Radio Club will take place at the Eagles Nest in Eshowe today, Sunday 29 July starting at 12:00, and lunch will follow at 12:30.
LOOKING FOR BACK ISSUES OF RADIO ZS
If you go to the Radio ZS download page, you will see that the first issue of Radio ZS - July 1947 - is available for download, and many more issues are on the list. But we have many gaps and would like to fill them up. Do you possibly have one of the missing copies of Radio ZS? In the August issue of Radio ZS there is a list of the missing magazines. If you can help, please contact Dennis, ZS4BS at radiozs@sarl.org.za so that they may be scanned and uploaded.
THE SARL YL SPRINT
The 2018 SARL YL Sprint will take place on Thursday 9 August from 12:00 to 14:00 UTC, please note the new time! It is a phone contest on the 40 metre band and exchange is a RS report and YL or OM. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet labelled “my call sign YL Sprint,” shall be submitted by 16 August 2018 by e-mail to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za.
THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL LIGHTHOUSE AND LIGHTSHIP WEEKEND
The ILLW takes place over the weekend of 18 and 19 August, and it is not a contest. More than 300 lighthouses have been registered so far for the event. Looking at the listing, we note that Africa will be represented by Namibia with two lighthouses and South Africa with twelve lighthouses. There is still time to register a lighthouse and participate in this event.
SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN STORE FOR FT8 AND MSK144 WITH WSJT-X VERSION 2.0
WSJT-X co-developer Joe Taylor, K1JT, has announced that major changes are coming to the FT8 and MSK144 digital protocols when WSJT-X version 2.0 arrives in a few months. Taylor said version 2.0 should be ready for prime time by January 2019. “Much of the necessary programming is finished,” Taylor said in a post to the Packrats reflector. “Many of the new features have been tested on the air and we find them to work well.”
Taylor was quick to point out that the new capabilities are not yet publicly available, not even in beta form. He said that he, Steve Franke, K9AN, and Bill Somerville, G4WJS, have been developing “enhanced versions of the MSK144 and FT8 protocols that extend the message payload to 77 bits.”
“Do not rush to download something,” he cautioned. “There is more testing and code optimization to do.” He said current plans call for a beta-testing period “probably starting in mid- to-late September,” with a full release “possible a couple of months later.”
(Thanks to Emil, ZS1XB for this item)
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to be at low levels. Currently there are 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 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:
30 July – the closing date for ZS2 Sprint logs
05 August – the SARL HF Phone Contest
8 to 15 August – the YOTA 2018 event in South Africa
09 August – National Woman’s Day and the SARL YL Sprint
12 August – International Youth Day
13 August - the closing date for the HF Phone logs
18 to 19 August – the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
19 August – the SARL HF Digital Contest
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
The SARL HF Phone Contest will be run from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC on Sunday 5 August 2018 with activity between 14 125 and 14 300 kHz; 7 063 and 7 100, 7 130 and 7 200 kHz; and 3 603 and 3 650, 3 700 and 3 800 kHz. The exchange is a RS report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. Each QSO counts 1 point and you can claim points for each area worked on each band as well as stations worked on all three bands. Please read the rules in the 2018 SARL Blue Book before the contest.
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, edited by Dave Reece, ZS1DFR and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
