SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2019
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 on 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:
HAVE YOU TRIED RTTY?
INVITATION TO ACTIVATE A SPECIAL CALL SIGN IN THE RSGB CRICKET WORLD CUP RADIO MARATHON
and
THE 2019 DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
HAVE YOU TRIED RTTY?
Almost everybody is operating the new-fangled digital modes, here is a chance to operate the original digital mode! The SARL RTTY contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa and encourages QSOs using RTTY. The contest takes place from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC on Sunday 24 February 2019 with activity on 80, 40 and 20 metres. The exchange is an RST report and your grid square (e.g. KF26) and you may work a station once per band.
QSOs with stations in Southern Africa are worth 3 points and QSOs with DX stations are worth 1 point. Your log must be submitted by 4 March to contest@sarl.org.za. The full set of rules can be found on page 34 of the 2019 SARL Blue Book.
Set yourself a goal – Worked all ZS, the 2019 Worked Zone 39 and/or Worked all Grid Squares on RTTY!
INVITATION TO ACTIVATE A SPECIAL CALL SIGN IN THE RSGB CRICKET WORLD CUP RADIO MARATHON
The Radio Society of Great Britain is organising an International Amateur Radio Marathon on the HF bands to celebrate the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricket World Cup which is being held in England and Wales between 30 May and 14 July 2019. We are writing to you as a member or associate member country of the ICC to invite you to participate by activating one or more special call signs in the marathon.
The marathon will run from 30 May 2019 to 14 July 2019 with UK and International call signs activated on 9 HF bands using SSB, CW and Digital modes. A series of award certificates will be offered to participants based on the number of QSOs they achieve with UK and International activators. The RSGB will be using the excellent Hamlogs system that allows logs from activating stations to be uploaded to a central database. Participants will be able to track their progress towards the available awards.
From the UK we will be activating 31 special call signs including eleven for the famous Cricket Grounds that will be used in England and Wales and ten for the teams that are participating. The UK callsigns will all have the prefix GB19 with a two or three letter suffix. We are inviting you to join us in activating one or more special callsigns. If you can obtain call signs with the suffix "19CWC" that would be ideal, but other distinctive callsigns are also welcome. Full details of the marathon will be published at https://rsgb.org/main/activity/radio-marathons/.
HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR 2019 AMSAT SA SPACE SYMPOSIUM?
The 2019 AMSAT SA Space Symposium will be held on Saturday 16 March 2019 at the Premier Midrand Hotel. The symposium registration fee is R400 per person for AMSAT SA and SARL members and R600 for non-members. There is an early bird rate of R350 for AMSAT SA and SARL Members if booked and paid for by Thursday 28 February 2019. Bookings made and paid for by Friday 15 February will go into a public draw at the Symposium for an ARRL Satellite Handbook. The registration fee includes refreshments and eats on arrival, mid-morning and afternoon tea and coffee with eats, and a buffet lunch. All the information about the Symposium is available on www.amsatsa.org.za.
You are listening to an amateur radio news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE 2019 DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
The SARL Council met face to face on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 February at the NARC and discussed the planning and arrangements for the 2019 Day of the Radio Amateur which will be held in Stellenbosch on 12 and 13 April 2019. The five nominations received to serve on Council are Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL, Geoff Levey, ZS6C, Cliff Smyth, ZS6BOX, Phillip van Tonder, ZS6PVT and Guy Eales, ZS6GUY. Council approved the Awards and Trophy nominations and the recipients will be notified shortly. Responding to requests from members, Council has decided to publish the list of recipients in the AGM Booklet which will be available from 1 March 2019. The financial documents were discussed and the budget for the new financial year was approved, there is a small increase in membership subscriptions.
The SARL Symposium will be run on Friday afternoon 12 April at the Protea Hotel adjacent to the Techno Park and the team are busy finalising the programme. The Boland ARC report that the registration for the AGM will take place from 07:00 to 09:00 on Saturday morning 13 April with the AGM starting at 09:00 for 09:30 at the Datavoice Auditorium in the Technopark. While the AGM is in session, the partners will be visiting JC le Roux for a champagne and nougat tasting. A cellar tour and wine tasting at Blaauwklippen will take place during the afternoon with the SARL Awards Dinner at the Stellenbosch Golf Club next to the Technopark on Saturday evening.
The Boland ARC suggests that members from out of town make use of AirBNB and other such web sites to book accommodation in Stellenbosch for the weekend.
YOUNG AMATEURS RADIO CLUB WANTS TO PAIR YOUTHFUL CONTESTERS WITH "BIG GUN" STATIONS
The Young Amateurs Radio Club (YARC) Youth Contesting Program (YCP) wants to match groups of enthusiastic young contesters with "big gun" stations to gain operating experience during the CQ World Wide WPX SSB Contest over the weekend of 30 to 31 March. The YCP is a weekend initiative for groups of young Amateur Radio contesters in the US and Canada.
"It will hopefully enable a new dimension of the hobby for young amateurs who have contested a little before and set a new precedent for the welcoming of a new generation of radio sport aficionados," explained YARC Board Member Sterling Mann, N0SSC. The 27-year-old electrical engineer, who helps manage YARC programmes and outreach, described the initiative as "intentionally flexible, lightly organized, and low-cost."
"We will attempt to pair a small group (up to four) of young contesters interested in operating with a 'big gun' station owner interested in hosting the youth group," continued Mann, also active in the College Amateur Radio Initiative (CARI). "The contesters will operate from the station, and the host has the option to help the youth improve their skills, provide advice, and even operate alongside. We will try to keep it such that young amateurs will only require a relatively short drive."
YARC's YCP is inspired by the efforts of Youngsters on the Air (YOTA) and its own Youth Contesting Program, as well as Team Exuberance, Mann said. He added, "We hope to inspire a big chunk of young amateurs into becoming the greatest contesters of the 21st century."
YARC is reaching out to radio amateurs under age 27 or so with at least some contesting experience who would be interested in operating the CQ WW WPX SSB at a contest-grade amateur radio station, and to owners of such stations. He urges those interested to sign up.
(ARRL Letter)
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATIONS
The SARL has received membership applications from Gawie Diedericks, ZS6GWD; Craig Newham, ZS6NEW; Anna de Beer, ZSL-1197 and Deon Pretorius, ZSL-1198. Any objections to these membership applications must reach the League Secretary before the Wednesday following this bulletin. Please send your objections to secretary@sarl.org.za
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 will provide some DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:
13 February – World Radio Day.
15 February – bookings made and paid for the Space Symposium in a draw for an ARRL Satellite Handbook; the closing date for PEARS VHF Logs.
16 and 17 February – the ARRL DX CW Contest.
18 February – the closing date for National Field Day and AWA CW Activity Day logs.
24 February – the SARL RTTY contest.
27 February – International Milk Tart Day.
28 February – end of early bird bookings for the Space Symposium and closing date for SARL Hall of Fame nominations.
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
HAVE YOU TRIED RTTY?
Almost everybody is operating the new-fangled digital modes, here is a chance to operate the original digital mode! The SARL RTTY contest is open to all radio amateurs in Southern Africa and encourages QSOs using RTTY. The contest takes place from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC on Sunday 24 February 2019 with activity on 80, 40 and 20 metres.
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 and edited by Dennis Green, ZS4BS/6 and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
