SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER 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 begin this news bulletin with news of a silent key:
It is with deep regret that we announce that the key of Buzz Macey, ZR1AAC went silent on Sunday 9 December 2018. Buzz has been involved in Scouting movement for more than 60 years and was the chairman of the Scout Association's National Awards Committee. He was also involved in Adult Leader Training, Springbok Scout reviews and the Cedarberg Scout Adventure committee.
We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.
PAUSE
In the news, today:
THE 2019 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
SATELLITE NEWS
and
BROADCASTERS INTRUDING ON EXCLUSIVE AMATEUR RADIO FREQUENCIES
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE 2019 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
The venue for the SARL Symposium on Friday 12 April 2019 will be at the Protea Hotel, Stellenbosch which is at the Techno Park. The other activities of the weekend will take place at the Datavoice House Auditorium in the Techno Park, and at the Stellenbosch Golf Club.
Have you had a look at pages 14, 15 and 16 of the December Radio ZS? You will find a list of the SARL Awards and Trophies that will be handed out during the Awards Dinner – here is your chance to nominate a fellow radio amateur for his or her contribution to our hobby. It could be an operational award or in recognition of outstanding work. Nominations for the Awards and Trophies, nominations for Council, and motions for the AGM, must be submitted to the SARL Secretary by midnight on Thursday 31 January 2019 using the e-mail secretary@sarl.org.za. Nomination templates and a template for motions can be found by following the link in the 2019 Day of the Radio item in the Member’s Only section.
SARL HALL OF FAME
The SARL Council is calling for nominations for the Hall of Fame. The SARL Hall of Fame honours those individuals, whether licensed amateurs or not, who have made significant contributions to amateur radio; who not only excel in personal performance in major areas of amateur radio, but who also “give back” to the hobby in outstanding ways. The nomination template is available under the AGM Documents and must be submitted to the SARL Secretary by midnight on Thursday 28 February 2019.
SATELLITE NEWS
The receiver on the newly launched Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 CubeSat seems to have suffered a failure that could render the satellite unusable, AMSAT said over the weekend. Efforts continue by AMSAT Engineering to establish the cause of the problem and determine if a fix is possible. AMSAT Vice President-Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, reported over the weekend that the issue cropped up during efforts to commission Fox-1Cliff/AO-95.
"After a few days of tests, analysis, and discussion, it appears that Fox-1Cliff/AO-95 will not be commissioned as our fourth Fox-1 Amateur Radio satellite," Buxton said. Commissioning began on December 4, right after the CubeSat's successful launch a day earlier.
At the request of Exseed Space, AMSAT has designated the 1U ExseedSat CubeSat, launched on 3 December on a Falcon 9 vehicle, as VUsat-OSCAR 96 (VO-96). The downlink is 145,900 MHz for the FM repeater (CTCSS = 67 Hz) and digipeater plus telemetry, and 435,340 MHz for FM repeater and digipeater uplink.
JY1Sat, launched on 3 December as part of the SpaceX SSO-A: SmallSat Express launch, has been designated as Jordan OSCAR 97 (JO-97). JO-97 carries a 435/145 MHz SSB/CW inverting Amateur Radio transponder and a Slow-Scan Digital Video (SSDV) system to transmit stored images. The telemetry downlink is on 145,840 MHz, the transponder downlink passband is 145,855 to 145,875 MHz, with an inverting uplink on 435,100 to 435,120 MHz.
You are listening to a news Bulletin of the South African Radio League.
BROADCASTERS INTRUDING ON EXCLUSIVE AMATEUR RADIO FREQUENCIES
The International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 Monitoring System (IARUMS) reports that Radio Hargeisa in Somaliland has returned to 7 120 kHz after a break of several weeks, while Radio Eritrea has been reported on 7 140 and 7 180 kHz. Radio Sudan has been transmitting on 7 205 kHz with excessive splatter, IARUMS said. German telecommunications authorities have filed official complaints.
IARUMS has also reported digital signals attributed to the Israeli Navy on 7 107 and 7 150 kHz. In addition, a Russian military F1B signal was observed in mid-November on 7 179 kHz. A Russian over-the-horizon radar has returned to 20 metres on 14 335 - 14 348 kHz. It was monitored on 22 November.
Earlier, IARUMS reported digital signals from the Polish military daily on 7 001.8 kHz where Amateur Radio has a worldwide primary allocation. Telecommunications officials in Germany filed a complaint. IARUMS has received reports of short "beeps" exactly 1 second apart, as well as frequency hopping between 10 108 and 10 115 kHz and 18 834 and 18 899 kHz. The signals are believed to emanate from a site near Chicago associated with an FCC-licensed experimental operation involved with low-latency exchange trading on HF.
THE 2019 SARL BLUE BOOK
The 2019 Contest Manual or Blue Book has been released and is available for download from Contest page on the SARL website. Why 'Blue Book?' Well, the first Contest Manual was printed and had blue covers, and from there, the name. Please download a copy of the 2019 Contest Manual, as changes have been made to the General Rules, the YL Sprint, the Youth Sprint and the ZS3 Sprint; two new contests have been added, and small changes have been made to other contests.
CONTEST RESULTS
The results of the Africa ALL Mode DX Contest have been released and can be found under Contest Results on the League website.
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 15 to 30 m bands may provide some DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:
Today – the Day of Reconciliation.
17 December – Public Holiday.
21 December – the Summer Solstice.
22 December - Ursid Meteor Shower.
25 December – Christmas Day.
26 December – Family Day and the closing date for articles for the January Radio ZS.
31 December – End of the YOTA 2018 month, the 2018 CQ DX Marathon and the ARRL International Grid Chase.
1 January – New Year’s Day and the start of the 2019 CQ DX Marathon, the ARRL Straight Key Night and the Green Keys Night
5 January – the Pretoria ARC Flea Market.
5 and 6 January – the ARRL RTTY/FT8 Roundup
9 January – all provincial schools re-open.
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
THE 2019 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
The venue for the SARL Symposium on Friday 12 April 2019 will be at the Protea Hotel Stellenbosch, which is at the Techno Park. The other activities of the weekend will take place at the Datavoice House Auditorium in the Techno Park, and at the Stellenbosch Golf Club.
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 Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY, edited by Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
