SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 06 OCTOBER 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 in English at 08:15 and 08:30 Central African Time respectively on HF and 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.
In the news, today:
THE AWA SSB VALVE QSO PARTY THIS AFTERNOON
BACAR NEXT SATURDAY
and
THE 2020 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE AWA SSB VALVE QSO PARTY THIS AFTERNOON
The SSB Valve QSO Party runs from 13:00 to 17:00 UTC this afternoon with activity on 40 and 80 meters. The exchange is your call sign, an RS report, a consecutive serial number starting at 001 and the type of radio you are using. The log sheets must be submitted by Monday 21 October 2019 to andyzs6ady@vodamail.co.za. Consult the 2019 Blue Book for all the rules.
THE SPRING QRP SPRINT ON 12 OCTOBER
The last QRP Contest for 2019 is on the air from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC on Saturday 12 October 2019 with CW and phone activity using 5 Watts or less. The first hour is restricted to the 40 metre band, in the remaining two hours the contesters are free to use any HF (non-WARC) band as they see fit. Contesters must comply with the contest-preferred segments as detailed in the general rules.
The exchange is a RS or RST report and your full 6- character grid locator. Submit your log in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel spreadsheet with a summary sheet by 19 October 2019 by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za. When submitting the log sheet, it should be renamed by the contester to include his/her call sign. A photo(s), in JPG format, of the station operating, MUST accompany every log entry.
GET READY FOR BACAR NEXT SATURDAY
The Secunda Amateur Radio Club will be launching a high-altitude balloon on Saturday 12 October 2019. AMSAT SA will have two payloads, Kletskous and AfriCUBE. Both transponders are part of the AMSAT SA CubeSat programme and will be tested on the BACAR 7. The Kletskous transponder which has been developed and built by Leon Lessing, ZS6LMG has an uplink on 435,155 MHz plus/minus 15 kHz and a downlink on 145,865 MHz plus/minus 15 kHz. It is a linear transponder supporting FM and SSB transmissions.
AfriCUBE, the brainchild of Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC has an uplink on 435,100 MHz plus/minus 40 kHz and a downlink on 145,950 MHz plus/minus 40 kHz. AfriCUBE supports several modes including FM, SSB, SSTV and CW. Please consult the band plan and ground station requirements on www.amsatsa.org.za. A voice beacon will operate on 10,480 GHz with the call sign ZS6BZP.
Clearance for the flight was given and the launch window is from 03:00 to 13:00 UTC. The balloon will carry multiple payloads weighing in at less than 500 g and conforming to the 1U CubeSat dimensions.
The aim for the BACAR 7 flight this year is to:
1. Do some STEM development.
2. Create limited launch opportunities for external parties
3. Testing the new bacarsat frame with sliders and testing supercaps for powering future flights
4. Testing of experimental payloads
5. Create opportunities for radio amateurs to participate in the most exciting hobby.
There will be several radio payloads on-board the BACAR 7 flight that will give a lot of opportunity for exploration by radio amateurs. Most significant are the two linear transponders from Kletskous and Africube that will be tested and can be operated by amateurs. ZS6CR is responsible for the main shuttle and flight controller.
The payload will also transmit RTTY telemetry on 434,650 MHz and 1 296,600 MHz CW. The Hammies club has built a SSTV payload operating on 144,500 MHz. Standard APRS on 144,800 MHz is also available. The 10 GHz band is also active with a beacon. ZS6WBT will have a voice beacon on 145,550 MHz reading out flight information. ZS6IIX will be attempting an altitude and distance record for 868 MHz LORAWAN equipment.
Please send all the telemetry and SSTV info decoded to admin@stratosfeer.co.za, the BACAR team will send you a certificate of participation as well. For the final detail frequencies and latest flight predictions from Wednesday 9 October 2019 visit www.sarl.org.za and www.amsatsa.org.za frequently before the flight.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE 2020 SARL DAY OF THE RADIO AMATEUR
The Sandton and Hammies ARCs are hosting the SARL Day of the Radio Amateur over the weekend of 3 to 5 April 2020.
Members are hereby invited to submit motions for discussion at the AGM on 4 April 2020 as well as submit nominations for the various SARL Awards and Trophies. The relevant documents can be found on the AGM Documents page in the Members Only section. The closing date for motions and Award nominations is midnight on Friday 31 January 2020 and must be sent to the SARL Secretary.
IARU ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL STEPS UP EFFORTS TO COMBAT RADIO SPECTRUM POLLUTION
The Administrative Council (AC) of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) held its annual
in-person meeting on 28 and 29 September 2019 in Lima, Peru, just before the triennial General Assembly of IARU Region 2. The AC is responsible for the policy and management of the IARU and consists of the three IARU international officers and two representatives from each of the three IARU regional organizations.
The AC conducted its final review of IARU preparations for the 2019 World Radio Communication Conference (WRC-19) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). WRC-19 will be held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for four weeks beginning on 28 October. The conference has a lengthy agenda, with items of direct interest to the amateur service including consideration of improvements to the amateur allocation in Region 1 at 50 MHz, protection of existing allocations to the amateur service and development of the agenda for the next WRC in 2023. For the past four years IARU volunteers and its member-societies have been working to influence the proposals from national telecommunications administrations and regional telecommunications organizations (RTOs) that will be considered in Sharm El-Sheikh. IARU efforts have reduced the number of potentially damaging proposals that otherwise might have been offered for consideration, but several challenges remain. A small team of IARU observers will attend WRC-19 and will work with amateurs and friends on national delegations to reach the best possible outcomes.
Looking beyond WRC-19 the AC recognized the need for an increased commitment to influencing the work of standards organizations, particularly the International Special Committee on Radio Interference (CISPR) and its participating national committees. The rising level of radio spectrum pollution caused by unnecessary and unwanted emissions from electronic devices such as wireless power transfer for the recharging of electric vehicles is a serious threat to radio communication services including the amateur service. While the work of the IARU is done by volunteers, attending meetings is expensive and requires the financial support of individual radio amateurs through membership of their national IARU member-societies. Additional qualified volunteers are needed in order to meet present and future challenges.
An extensive discussion was held to identify the principal challenges facing amateur radio and how the IARU and its member-societies can better address them. Upgrading of the current websites of the IARU and its three regional organizations is underway and should be completed in the coming months. The AC adopted a Brand Guide to ensure a common identity across the IARU organization.
The theme for next year's World Amateur Radio Day, 18 April 2020, was confirmed as "Celebrating Amateur Radio's Contribution to Society."
RESULTS OF THE SARL NATIONAL FIELD DAY HELD ON 14 - 15 SEPTEMBER
Class A
1st West Rand ARC, ZS6WR - 149 400 points
2nd Highway ARC, ZS5HAM - 53 028 points
3rd Bo-Karoo ARC, ZS3VDK - 27 756 points
Class C
1st Suid-Kaap ARC, ZS1SKR - 69 012 points
Class D
1st Johan van Zijl, ZS4DZ - 51 480 points
2nd Dennis Green, ZS4BS - 1 080 points
Class F
1st Pieter Jacobs, ZS6XT - 21 762 points
2nd Port Elizabeth ARC, ZS2PE - 1 510 points
Congratulations to the winners
JOHANNESBURG AMATEUR RADIO CLUB AGM
The JARC held their AGM on Saturday 28 September and there were no changes to the committee. The meeting was held at the JARC clubhouse in Waterval Estate, Johannesburg. The committee as it stands is:
Chairman: Errol De Lange, ZS6KED
Vice Chair: Ronald Verweerdt, ZS6RVC
Treasurer: Steven J. Baynes, ZS6XU
Secretary: Rory Crouch, ZS6RBJ
Events: Graham Macnally, ZS6GPM
Youth: Michelle Macnally, ZS6MEM
Technical: David Le Grange, ZR6DLG
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. With the recent equinox, the 10 to 30 m bands will provide some good DX fun, especially around sunrise and sunset. 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
7 October – the closing Date for UHF/VHF Digital logs
11 October – the closing date for 80 m QSO Party logs
12 October – the BACAR flight and the Spring QRP Contest
18 to 20 October – Jamboree on the Air
19 October – the RAE and CQ Hou Koers
21 October – the closing date for QRP and AWA Valve QSO Party logs
26 and 27 October – CQ Worldwide SSB contest
27 October – the Pears HF Competition
02 November – the RaDAR Challenge and the Pretoria ARC Flea Market
09 and 10 November – the SARL Analogue VHF/UHF Contest
10 November – Remembrance Sunday
11 November – Armistice Day and the closing date for RaDAR Logs
To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:
The SSB Valve QSO Party runs from 13:00 to 17:00 UTC this afternoon with activity on 40 and 80 meters. The exchange is your call sign, an RS report, a consecutive serial number starting at 001 and the type of radio you are using.
This concludes our bulletin for this morning.
We invite clubs and individuals 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 to include 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 7082 kHz lower side-band. A rebroadcast by Andy, ZS6ADY can be heard on Monday evenings at 19:30 Central African Time on 3620 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 Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY, edited by Paul Johnson ZS1S and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
