SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 26 AUGUST 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 we must announce that the key of Barrie Neunborn, ZS5BTC, a member of the SARL, went silent on Tuesday morning 21 August 2018.

We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Margaret, their three daughters and their families and his friends.

PAUSE

In the news, today:

THE SARL HF CW CONTEST THIS AFTERNOON

A NEW SARL HAMNET NATIONAL DIRECTOR APPOINTED

and

YOUNG PEOPLE ARE THE FUTURE LEADERS IN AMATEUR RADIO

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

THE SARL HF CW CONTEST THIS AFTERNOON

The last of the SARL HF Contests, the HF CW Contest, is on the air this afternoon between 14:00 and 17:00 UTC with activity between 3 510 and 3 560 kHz, 7 000 and 7 040 kHz and 14 000 and 14 060 kHz. The exchange is an RST report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. The full set of rules can be found in the August issue of Radio ZS or the 2018 Blue Book. Please read the rules before 14:00 UTC.

Submit your log in ADIF (with a summary sheet), Cabrillo (with a summary sheet) or MS Excel format (the summary sheet is part of the Excel spreadsheet) and labelled "my call sign HF CW" by Monday 3 September 2018 by e-mail to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za.

To date only 5 logs have been received for the SARL HF Digital Contest, get your log in by midnight on Monday 27 August.

A NEW SARL HAMNET NATIONAL DIRECTOR APPOINTED

The SARL Council at its meeting on Tuesday evening 21 August, appointed Glynn Chamberlain, ZS6GLN as the new SARL Hamnet National Director. Council received a letter from Paul van Spronsen, ZS1V requesting that he step down as National Director. The name of the new Deputy National Director will be made known as soon as the appointment is made.

The President and Council would like to thank Paul for his 5 years of service as National Director and wish Glynn all of the best in his new post.

YOUNG PEOPLE ARE THE FUTURE LEADERS IN AMATEUR RADIO

"You are the future of Amateur Radio", YOTA 2018 Patron, Gary Immelman, ZS6YI told YOTA 2018 delegates in his address on the last evening of the event that is now worldwide heralded as the best ever. He said "the intention this year was to subject you to relative high intensity amateur radio fun with as many diverse segments as what we could muster during this short week. Obviously, we have only touched the tip of the iceberg and so many more projects could've been embarked upon, but I believe you have all got a taste of what could be done in our hobby and especially what can be built upon to make YOTA of the future an ever-changing and even better experience than the last.

You are the future leaders of the amateur radio fraternity and I urge you to become leaders in your respective organizations. By virtue of the fact that you were prepared to come all this way to South Africa and to so enthusiastically participate in this year's YOTA tells me that you are all a very dedicated and motivated group of young people. Judging by what I saw on how you all participated, the enthusiasm and vigour in which you participated in the various activities gives me comfort that the future of amateur radio is indeed very bright."

Gary thanked the SARL YOTA organising team for their dedication to make this, undoubtedly the greatest event on the South African Calendar, happen. Special thanks should go to Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL for his tremendous contribution and leadership, Koos Fick, ZR6KF and Lisa Leenders, PA2LS for bringing the event to South Africa.

Gary concluded with "The greatest gift you can give someone, is your time, because you are giving a portion of your life that you will never get back."

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

AMSAT SA TO MOVE SPACE SYMPOSIUM TO EARLIER IN THE YEAR

AMSAT SA has announced the date for the 2019 AMSAT SA Space Symposium. It will be held on Saturday 16 March 2019. A call for papers and more details will be announced shortly. Clubs are requested to check the date and advise admin@amsatsa.org.za if the date clashes with club meetings or any other known events.

CONTESTING IN SEPTEMBER

The weekend of 8 and 9 September will see the running of the second leg of the SARL National Field Day.

On the weekend of 15 and 16 September there are two contests to participate in. The second leg of the SARL VHF/UHF and above Digital contest will be on the air as well as the Africa All Mode International DX Contest, which is “Africa works the World!”

The objective of this all mode contest is to stimulate contesting from Africa. All participating stations worldwide may work any country during the contest period. African DXCC entities are defined as those valid per the ARRL DXCC AF listing published at the time of the contest.

The Africa All Mode contest will be run from 12:00 UTC on Saturday 15 September to 12:00 UTC on Sunday 16 September 2018. Both single and multi-operator stations may operate for the entire 24-hour period. There are no mandated breaks in operating time required.

It is CW, RTTY and SSB on 160, 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10 metres. No paper entries will be accepted for contest or checking purposes. Entries must be submitted in Cabrillo format only and be received no later than 15 days after the contest – Monday 1 October 2018. Entries must be sent to contest@sarl.org.za

The complete set of rules for all three contests can be found in the 2018 SARL Contest Manual and it will be published in the CQ Contest Column of the September 2018 Radio ZS.

WEST RAND FLEA MARKET

The West Rand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 1 September 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.

HIGHWAY ARC AGM

The Highway Amateur Radio Club held their AGM on 21 August 2018. A new committee to take the club forward into the next 12 months was elected and is comprised of the following members:

Chairman: Keith Lowes, ZS5WFD
Vice-Chairman: Laurie Devereux, ZS5DL
Secretary: Peter Leonard, ZS5PL
Treasurer: Kimmy Wright, ZS5KIM
Members: Glen Duffy, ZS5GD, Peter Dormehl, ZS5HF, Justin Wright, ZS5JW and Sean Pritchard, ZS5X

The membership of HARC has just reached 100 for the first time and of that number, 37 were present at the AGM. Various awards and certificates were presented to worthy club members and the evening finished with an excellent buffet meal. Committee portfolios are still to be finalised and will be promulgated on the HARC Facebook page in due course.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. Currently there are a few, tiny sunspots visible, but with no threat of solar flaring. 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:

This afternoon – the SARL HF CW Competition
27 August – the closing date for HF Digital logs
1 September – the West Rand Flea Market
1 and 2 September – the Region 1 and RSGB SSB Field Days
3 September – the closing date for HF CW Logs
8 and 9 September – the SARL National Field Day
15 September – the East Rand Branch AGM
15 and 16 September – the Africa All Mode International DX contest and the SARL VHF/UHF Digital contest
17 September – Closing date for NFD Logs and October RAE Registration Closes

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

The last of the SARL HF Contests, the HF CW Contest, is on the air this afternoon between 14:00 and 17:00 UTC with activity between 3 510 and 3 560 kHz, 7 000 and 7 040 kHz and 14 000 and 14 060 kHz. The exchange is an RST report and a consecutive serial number starting at 001. The full set of rules can be found in the August issue of Radio ZS or the 2018 Blue Book.

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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS and read by ……………………................

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

/EX