SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 21 JULY 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 Johan, 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 start the bulletin this morning with news of a silent key.
It is with regret that we announce that the key of Steve Schmidt, ex-ZS6AWH, aged 79 went silent on 14 June 2019 in the Pretoria East Hospital. He was a long-time member of the Pretoria ARC.
We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Maureen, daughter Liesel, family and friends.
PAUSE
In the news, today:
THE ZS2 SPRINT THIS AFTERNOON
THE IARU REPRESENTS AMATEUR RADIO AT CEPT MEETINGS
and
AMSATSA SPACE SYMPOSIUM 2020
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE ZS2 SPRINT THIS AFTERNOON
The ZS2 Sprint is on the air from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC this afternoon 21 July 2019 with CW and phone activity on 40 metres. The exchange is a RS or RST report and your provincial or country abbreviation. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format and labelled “my call sign ZS2 Sprint,” must reach the contest committee by Sunday 28 July 2019 on e-mail zs2ec01@gmail.com. The full set of rules is on page 56 of the 2019 Blue Book, the log sheets are available from the Contest Page on the League web site.
THE IARU REPRESENTS AMATEUR RADIO AT CEPT MEETINGS
International Amateur Radio Union Region 1 reports that a further meeting to address the topic of Wireless Power Transmission (WPT) took place earlier this month. A subgroup of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) Committee SE24, charged with work on a report on generic WPT devices, met in Copenhagen, Denmark in early July. IARU Region 1 President Don Beattie, G3BJ, provided input on projections of harmful emissions from WPT systems, both generic and WPT for electric vehicles, operating at existing harmonic emission limits.
The IARU also reported on tests carried out on small WPT devices and a full report is to be considered at the next meeting in September. The IARU continues to argue for tighter emission limits on harmonics and other spurious emissions from WPT systems, which have the potential to cause sustained harmful interference to incumbent radio services. The IARU also was represented at a recent meeting in Switzerland of the CEPT Project Team D. This was the last of the CEPT project team meetings preparing European Common Proposals (ECP) for a number of agenda items for World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19) in October in Egypt.
WRC-19 agenda item 1.1, which addresses the possibility of a "harmonized" Region 1 allocation at 50 MHz, was the key issue to be resolved. The project team agreed on the text of an ECP for WRC-19, which, if adopted by the delegates, would see an entry in the International Table of Allocations for Region 1, and allocate 50 - 52 MHz to Amateur Radio on a secondary basis. In addition, the team agreed upon the addition of a footnote to the International Table to permit individual CEPT countries to introduce a national primary allocation in the 50,0 – 50,5 MHz sub-band.
The IARU will attend the final meeting of CEPT's Conference Preparatory Group (CPG) in late August and finalize CEPT's input to WRC-19. That meeting will also consider a proposal by France to allocate 144 - 146 MHz to the Aeronautical Service on a primary basis.
VACANCIES IN THE NEWS TEAM
The SARL News Team welcomes Paul Johnson, ZS1S to the team. The team still has vacancies for a Bulletin compiler/editor, an English and an Afrikaans proof-reader. If you want to join the News Team, contact Dennis at zs4bs@netactive.co.za or Anette, ZR6D at jhjacobsza@gmail.com
KLETSKOUS AND AFRICUBE MAKING GOOD PROGRESS
Kletskous and AfriCUBE, AMSAT SA's two CubeSat projects are making good progress. The Space frame and the design for the antenna and solar panel deployments were approved at the project meeting held last Saturday. The Electronic power system and magnetic stabiliser are complete. This week the new multi-layer printed circuit boards for the transponder were received. The PCB’s were manufactured and sponsored by Trax Interconnect in their state of the art factory in Cape Town. AMSAT SA is planning to fly Kletskous on the next Secunda Amateur Radio Club BACAR flight scheduled for 12 October. A pre-flight Kletskous integration meeting will be held in early September.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
AMSATSA SPACE SYMPOSIUM 2020
AMSATSA will be holding its 2020 Space Symposium in Midrand on Saturday 18 July 2020. Gauteng Clubs are requested to note the date and add it to their programme for 2020. More details and the first call for papers will be announced in the next two weeks.
ZS50MOON ACTIVE FROM 20 TO 31 JULY
On Sunday 20 July 1969 over 500 million people around the world listened and watched with excitement as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took their first steps on the Moon's surface. To commemorate this special anniversary there will be a special event station on the air at various times from 20 to 31 July on various satellites (Oscar 100, AO-91, AO-92, SO-50 and possibly more) as ZS50MOON. This call sign will be manned by various radio amateurs over this period. Check out the twitter feed for updates on when the station will be active https://twitter.com/zs50moon. If any South African radio amateur would like to operate as ZS50MOON during the period, or for any queries or electronic QSL card requests, please contact Tom, ZR6TG by e-mail at tvdbon+zs50moon@gmail.com
CONTEST RESULTS
The Contest Committee received nine logs for the SARL Newbie Contest held on 6 July 2019.
1st Wicus Ross, ZS1WWW – 210 points
2nd Marie Grobbelaar, ZS4MG - 135 points
3rd Nickus de Vos, ZR6JN - 130 points
CLUB NEWS
The Magalies Radio Amateur Club will be presenting a training course for the October RAE. The classes will start at 08:30 CAT on Saturday 27 July at the Magalies Clubhouse on the corner of Bryer and Mills Avenues, Waverley, Pretoria. Full details are available on the Club web site at www.zs6mrk.org.
The West Rand Amateur Radio Club held its AGM on Saturday 13 July 2019. The following committee was elected.
Chairman: Geoff Levey, ZS6C
Vice-Chairman: Nic van Duffelen, ZR6AEZ
Secretary: Phillip van Tonder, ZS6PVT
Treasurer: Gert du Plessis, ZR6GRT
Members: Stephen Reynolds, ZS6SJR; Anthony Rouquette, ZS6ANT; Glen Andrew, ZS6GGA; Beverley van Tonder, ZR6BVT and Shane Clarke, ZS6SC
Co-opted members: Willem Weideman, ZS6X; Nick Dreyer, ZS1N and Keith Liddle, ZS6AGF
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. There are currently 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 18 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 ZS2 Sprint
24 July – the closing date for 80 m Club Sprint logs
25 July – the closing date for the August Radio ZS
27 and 28 July – the RSGB Islands on the Air contest
29 July – the closing date for log sheets for the RaDAR Challenge, QRP contest and ZS2 Sprint
3 Aug – the Pretoria ARC Flea Market
4 Aug – the SARL HF Phone contest
9 Aug – the SARL YL Sprint
10 Aug – The SARL Youth Sprint
17 and 18 Aug – the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
18 Aug – the SARL HF Digital Contest
25 Aug – the SARL HF CW Contest
To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item:
The ZS2 Sprint is on the air from 14:00 to 15:00 UTC this afternoon 21 July 2019 with CW and phone activity on 40 metres. The exchange is a RS or RST report and your provincial or country abbreviation. The full set of rules is on page 56 of the 2019 Blue Book, the log sheets are available from the Contest page on the League web site.
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. A rebroadcast by Andy, ZS6ADY can be heard on Monday evenings at 19:30 Central African Time on 3 620 kHz. We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; please send these by e-mail to artoday@sarl.org.za.
You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Dennis Green, ZS4BS, edited by Dave Reece, ZS1DFR and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
/EX
