SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER 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:
JOIN THE SARL FOR R99
THE SARL NEWBIE PARTY AND SARL AMSAT SA WORKSHOP ON 24 NOVEMBER
and
THE FIRST GEOSTATIONARY AMATEUR SATELLITE LAUNCHED
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
JOIN THE SARL FOR R99
The SARL is offering you the chance to join the League for only R99 on Black Friday 23 November 2018. You must ensure that your application form and the R99 is submitted on Friday 23 November. This is part of the SARLs Black Friday promotion.
THE SARL NEWBIE PARTY ON 24 NOVEMBER
The Newbie Party is a fun activity to encourage all new radio amateurs to become active and takes place from 08:00 to 20:00 UTC on Saturday 24 November 2018. It is a phone only contest on 20, 40 and 80 meters.
The exchange and scoring depend on the length of you being an amateur. Log sheets in MS Excel format must be submitted by 10 December 2018 by e-mail to ZS3VdK@webmail.co.za. Get all the details in the 2018 Blue Book.
ARE YOU PROTECTED AGAINST LIGHTNING?
Join the workshop at the NARC on Saturday 24 November. The SARL and AMSAT SA will be joining forces and present a workshop on monitoring of the RF noise floor and the impact it has on Amateur Radio. There will also be a major focus on lightning protection. Paul van As of Surgetek will cover two major subjects: The myths about lightning and practical aspects of how to protect your equipment.
Other items on the agenda include: Launch of two automated stations, design review of a Raspberry Pi automated station, troubleshooting the setting up of a RF noise floor monitoring station with Anton Janovsky and Brian Jacobs, Review of stored data, trends and analysis, Wireless Power Transfer and the creation of a list of RF friendly devices (energy saving lamps, LEDs etc.), the opposite to a list of products not to buy and how to do a simple test and check the noise environment around your house.
The detailed programme and registration form are available on www.amsatsa.org.za. Book now. The cost is R50 for SARL and AMSAT SA members and R150 for non-members.
THE 2019 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
The 2019 SARL Day of the Radio Amateur will be held over the weekend on 12 to 14 April 2019 in Stellenbosch. The Boland ARC will be hosting the event with a symposium on Friday 12 April, the AGM at the Data Voice House Auditorium and the SARL Awards Dinner at the Stellenbosch Golf Club on 13 April. More information will be released soon. Bookmark those dates.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE FIRST GEOSTATIONARY AMATEUR SATELLITE LAUNCHED
SpaceX successfully launched the Es'hail-2 satellite on Thursday 15 November from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. Lift-off occurred at 20:46 UTC and the satellite was deployed to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) about 32 minutes after lift-off. Es'hail 2 also carries the first amateur radio payload to fly in a geostationary orbit. Es'hail-2 will be "parked" 35 786 km above the equator at 25,5° East, nearly due North from Pretoria and Johannesburg. Get more details and a link on how to build a simple low cost ground station from www.amasatsa.org.za.
DIGITAL REPEATER NEWS FROM THE WESTERN CAPE
Currently, there are three active digital repeaters in the Western Cape. There is a UHF DMR repeater on 438,350 on Helderberg outside Somerset Wes and a UHF multimode repeater on 438,300 which handles DMR as well as D-STAR (Icom) and also 4FM (Yaesu) on Botlaryberg outside Stellenbosch. On Botlaryberg there is also a VHF D-STAR (Icom) repeater on 145,575 MHz.
DMR and D-STAR can be linked via a digital reflector. Thus, you can use these three repeaters to communicate digitally with local amateurs in Division 1 as well as in other divisions, but you can also communicate internationally by selecting the correct "Talk Group" or reflector. According to the web, there are already 37 amateurs in Division 1 registered to operate on the digital repeaters. There are 18 DMR repeaters online in South Africa with 263 call signs registered. For more information on the Digital Repeaters and other repeaters, visit www.wcrwg.co.za.
WEST RAND ARC FLEA MARKET
The West Rand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at 12:00 on Saturday 24 November 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.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. Currently there is only a tiny sunspot visible. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around one. The 15 to 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:
19 November the closing date for PEARS HF logs and SARL VHF/UHF logs.
22 November the closing date for December Radio ZS.
23 November join the SARL for R99 and the Cape Town ARC End of Year Function at the club house.
24 November the SARL / AMSAT SA Workshop, the SARL Newbie Sprint and the West Rand ARC Flea Market.
24 and 25 November the CQ WW DX CW Contest.
1 December the start of the YOTA Month 2018.
3 December the International Day for People with Disabilities.
8 December the Boland ARC AGM.
8 and 9 December ARRL 10 m Competition.
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
JOIN THE SARL FOR R99
The SARL is offering you the chance to join the League for only R99 on Black Friday 23 November 2018. You must ensure that your application form and the R99 is submitted on Friday 23 November. This is part of the SARLs Black Friday promotion.
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 4 895 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
