SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 7 OCTOBER 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 RADIO AMATEUR EXAMINATION AND SPRING QRP CONTEST NEXT SATURDAY
THE VHF WORKSHOP ON SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER
and
PRE-ORDER THE SIX VOLUME ARRL HANDBOOK 2019
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE RADIO AMATEUR EXAMINATION NEXT SATURDAY
The October Radio Amateur Examination will be written at various exam centres around the country as well as in Windhoek next Saturday 13 October. The exam numbers and the exam venues can be seen on the SARL web site, click on examination numbers on the left hand side.
The SARL News team wishes all the candidates the best of luck for the exam and thanks everybody involved with the training and assessment of the candidates. We hope to hear you soon on the air.
THE SARL SPRING QRP CONTEST NEXT SATURDAY
The Spring QRP Contest is on the air from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC on Saturday 13 October 2018 and you may use phone and CW with power output of 5 watts (PEP) output or less. A station may be worked once per band per mode and there are no antenna restrictions. 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 or RST report and your Grid locator, please consider exchanging realistic RS(T) signal reports and please use the full 6-character grid locator. You can also give a SOTA and/or ZSFF reference number if you are on a summit or in a nature park. Each QSO counts 1 point.
Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet and labelled "my call sign QRP Contest," must be submitted by 20 October 2018 by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za. Consult the 2018 Blue Book for all complete rules.
THE 2019 SARL CONTEST MANUAL OR BLUE BOOK
It is that time of year when the Contest Team start looking at a new Blue Book. The Contest Team invites comments and suggestions for the 2019 Blue Book. Must changes be made to the present set of contests? Are there suggestions for new contests?
Please send your comments and suggestions to contest@sarl.org.za by Wednesday 31 October 2018.
The Draft 2019 SARL Diary of Events is available on the League website, click on SARL Diary of Events. Thank you to those Clubs who have responded with dates of activities. Send your input to secretary@sarl.org.za
You are listening to a news Bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE VHF WORKSHOP ON SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER
The first in the series of VHF/UHF workshops will be held at the SARL National Amateur Radio Centre on Saturday 20 October. The workshop includes topics like Beacon coordination, build a simple 3 cm transmitter, aircraft scatter on 23 cm, linear amplifiers for VHF and UHF and the RSGB Video on meteor and tropo scatter. The programme and booking form are now available for download. Follow the link from the SARL homepage or go to www.amsatsa.org.za
GET YOUR PARK ON THE AIR SET FOR 14 TO 20 OCTOBER
What is hoped will be the first annual "Get Your Park ON" operating event will take place from 14 to 20 October in celebration of Earth Science Week. The event is open to Amateur Radio operators around the world and is sponsored by the national affiliates of World Wide Flora and Fauna (WWFF), which encourages radio amateurs to operate outdoors in protected nature parks.
During this on-the-air celebration, amateurs can participate in one of two ways. You can opt to be an Activator, setting up and operating in national and provincial as listed in the Southern African Fauna and Flora list found at https://zsfaunaandflora.wordpress.com/. Or you may decide to be a Hunter, operating from home and searching out and contacting the Activators. The South African listing has been updated with 14 new parks. If you are aware of a Nature Park not on the list, send the name and lat/long coordinates to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za and it will be added to the list.
"Get Your Park on the Air" begins at 00:00 UTC on Sunday 14 October and continues to 23:59 UTC on Saturday 20 October, the choice of frequencies and modes is up to you.
PRE-ORDER THE SIX VOLUME ARRL HANDBOOK 2019
The date to pre-order the new six volume ARRL 2019 Handbook has been extended to 20 October when the order will be placed with the ARRL. For the first time, the ARRL Handbook has been divided into multiple volumes. All six volumes are included in a handsome, hard slipcase, for easy storage and access. Each volume is more manageable to read and browse.
No final price is available as current the Rand/Dollar rate is volatile. Expected price is between R1 500 and R1 800, secure your copy by paying a deposit of R1 500 by 20 October 2018. The new volume is expected to be available for shipping via Postnet from Pretoria in the first week November.
For a pre-order form visit www.amateurradio.org.za. The SA Amateur Radio Development Trust will not import the softback version for 2019
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. Currently there is only a single, small sunspot visible with no threat of solar flares. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around one. With the equinox here the 10 to 30 m bands may, especially at sunrise and sunset, provide lots of DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:
Today the AWA SSB Valve QSO Party, information in last weeks bulletin.
9 October the World Post Day and provincial schools open.
11 October the closing date for 80 m QSO logs.
13 October The October RAE and the Spring QRP competition.
14 to 20 October Get Your Park on the Air.
19 21 October Jamboree on the Air.
20 October CQ Hou Koers, the VHF Workshop at the NARC and the closing date for QRP logs.
22 October the closing date for AWA logs.
24 October Get your articles in for the November Radio ZS.
27 October the Cape Town ARC meeting and the Pretoria ARC Flea Market.
27 28 October the CQ WW DX SSB Competition.
28 October the PEARS HF Competition.
31 October your input for the 2019 SARL Blue Book to contest@sarl.org.za
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
The October Radio Amateur Examination will be written at various exam centres around the country as well as in Windhoek next Saturday 13 October. The SARL News team wishes all the candidates the best of luck for the exam and we hope to hear you soon on the air.
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
