SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 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.
In the news, today:
THE SARL NATIONAL FIELD DAY NEXT WEEKEND
VHF DAY AT THE NARC
and
CQ HOU KOERS AND JOTA ASSISTANCE NEEDED
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE SARL NATIONAL FIELD DAY NEXT WEEKEND
The second leg of the SARL National Field Day is on the air from 10:00 UTC on Saturday 8 September to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 9 September 2018 with CW, phone, PSK and RTTY activity on 160 to 10 metres. The exchange is the number of transmitters, the Field Day operating class and the Provincial abbreviation. You can include a SOTA, ZSFF and/or IOTA reference number in the exchange. The sending of a RS or RST is optional - it has nothing to do with the scoring.
You can participate as Class A - Field Station, Multi operator; Class B - Field Station, Multi operator, QRP; Class C - Field Station, Single Operator; Class D - Field Station, Single Operator, QRP; Class E - Ultra Light Portable or Class F - General Stations. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet labelled "my call sign NFD," must be submitted by 10 September to contest@sarl.org.za. Please include a photo(s) of the station in operation (JPG format) with your log entry.
The rules are in the 2018 SARL Contest Manual as well as the September issue of Radio ZS.
VHF DAY AT THE NARC
The SARL in cooperation with AMSATSA will be holding a VHF/UHF workshop at the National Amateur Radio Centre on Saturday 20 October 2018. This is an advanced notice and an invitation for papers and presentations. Interested authors are invited to send a synopsis of their paper and presentation by 15 September 2018 to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.
RADIO ZS SEPTEMBER 2018
The September 2018 issue of Radio ZS is available for download from the front page of the SARL web site at www.sarl.org.za and is available to members and non-members. In this issue you can read about a mysterious CW message, the YOTA 2018 event held in August here in South Africa, Diégo, F4HAU tells the 3B7A story on the Saint Brandon archipelago and there are two stories about the 2018 Lighthouse weekend. John, ZS5JF talks about SWR - the persistent myth and you can get a list of countries who have access to 5 MHz.
CQ HOU KOERS ASSISTANCE NEEDED
CQ Hou Koers is an annual event that offers Voortrekkers the opportunity to have QSOs with other Voortrekkers and Scouts from all over South Africa and Namibia. It also allows them to hone the skills they need to obtain their merit badges like Radio Amateur, while also exposing these young people to our interesting technological and scientific hobby - this may stimulate career interests and choices.
CQ Hou Koers takes place on 20 October. Kindly offer your assistance, there are many groups who would like to participate. The Koersvas Voortrekkers near Brits require help to enable them to be on air on the day. Please send an e-mail to orionvoortrekkers@gmail.com
JOTA ASSISTANCE NEEDED
Richard, ZS6RKE, the National JOTA Coordinator says that the 1st Plettenberg Bay Scout Group is looking for a few amateurs to assist with a JOTA station over the weekend of the 19 to 21 October. If you are keen for any other areas in South Africa, please let me know and I will put you in contact with a group near you. No need to run the whole weekend, but Saturday is the main event day. Please contact me via mail on richard.hooper@scouts.org.za
You are listening to a news Bulletin of the South African Radio League.
MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ABOUT LAST WEEKEND'S SOLAR DISTURBANCE
The past weekend Radio Amateurs reported that they experienced periods of radio black-out which lasted 24 hours. When a strong enough solar flare occurs, ionisation is produced in the lower, more dense layers of the ionosphere (the D-layer), and radio waves that interact with electrons in layers lose energy due to the more frequent collisions that occur in the higher density environment of the D-layer. This can cause HF radio signals to become degraded or completely absorbed. This results in a radio blackout, the absence of HF communication, primarily impacting the 3 to 30 MHz band.
HamSci (Hamradio Science Citizen Investigation) is a USA based group of radio amateurs and scientists who work together to study various aspects of radio science. During this weekend's event they found that the solar and the planetary field united and created a hole that let plasma inside the magnetosphere of the planet create severe auroras.
The fast-growing sunspot (AR270) has reversed polarity which would link it as the first sunspot of the next solar cycle. The solar cycle is an average of 11 years. The current cycle (cycle 24) still has approximate 2 years to go before it is expected to reach its minimum and cycle 25 to start. The question HamSCI is asking was this just a single event or are we truly entering cycle 25?
Whatever hit earth was not proton flux which is associated with CMEs and coronal holes. The storm was created by fast compression of earth's magnetic field and the sudden release of magnetic pressure from the sun. This whiplash created a vacuum which sucked in the plasma surrounding the planet and at the same time caused the geomagnetic activity to rise to G3 level (strong).
Recently the South African Radio League and AMSAT SA have joined forces to form HamSCI SA to promote collaboration between Radio Amateurs and Scientists in South Africa in radio science. Currently the two organisations are involved in a 5 MHz propagation study and working on a monitoring system to study the increasing HF noise floor level which is exacerbated by the prolific use of lighting and charging system which do not comply to international agreed standards.
ARRL 2019 HANDBOOK WILL BE IN A SIX VOLUME BOXED SET
The ARRL will introduce a boxed version of the ARRL 2019 Handbook. Divided into six volumes the collection comes in a handsome, hard slipcase, for easy storage and access. Each volume is more manageable to read and browse. The Amateur Radio Development Trust online bookstore will start taking pre-orders for delivery towards the end of October 2018. For details visit www.amateurradio.org.za.
RESULTS OF THE 2018 SARL YL SPRINT
The Contest Committee received eight logs for the SARL YL Sprint held on 9 August.
1st Alta Gaybba, ZR3PA and Sonet de Wet, ZS3SW - 113 points,
3rd Jocelyn Hallendorff, ZS6JKL - 97 points,
4th Karin Andrew, ZS6MMA - 96 points.
RESULTS OF THE SARL HF DIGITAL CONTEST
The Contest Committee received five logs for the SARL HF Digital contest held on 19 August.
1st Jan Botha, ZS4JAN - 160 points,
2nd Mike Alberts, V51MA - 90 points,
3rd Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ and Thanie Gibson, ZS4AZ - 82 points,
5th Eugene Lindemann, ZR4EM - 48 points.
The highest score on a single band was Jan Botha, ZS4JAN with 88 points on 20 metres.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain 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 metre 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:
3 Sept – the closing date for HF CW Contest logs
8 and 9 Sept the SARL National Field Day
15 Sept – the East Rand Branch AGM
15 and 16 Sept the Africa All Mode International DX Contest and the SARL VHF/UHF Digital contest
16 Sept – registration for the October RAE closes
17 Sept – the closing date for National Field Day logs
24 Sept – the closing date for VHF/UHF Digital logs and for articles for the October Radio ZS,
29 and 30 Sept – the CQ World Wide RTTY Contest
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
The second leg of the SARL National Field Day is on the air from 10:00 UTC on Saturday 8 September to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 9 September 2018 with CW, phone, PSK and RTTY activity on 160 to 10 metres. The exchange is the number of transmitters, the Field Day operating class and the Provincial abbreviation. You can include a SOTA, ZSFF and/or IOTA reference number in the exchange. The rules are in the 2018 SARL Contest Manual as well as the September issue of Radio ZS.
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 Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY, edited by Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
