SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 27 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:
OCTOBER RAE RESULTS RELEASED
THE 2020 SARL 95 NATIONAL CONVENTION
WRC-19 OPENS ON 28 OCTOBER
and SAUDI ARABIA AND SEYCHELLES JOIN THE IARU
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
OCTOBER RAE RESULTS RELEASED
The results of the October RAE were released yesterday and can be found on the SARL web site. Congratulations to all the successful candidates and we hope to hear you on the air very soon.
Unfortunately, there are a number of candidates who have not completed all the exam administration as required. You will need to provide the missing documentation before your call sign will be issued to you.
THE 2020 SARL 95 NATIONAL CONVENTION
The Sandton and Hammies ARCs are hosting the 2020 SARL 95 National Convention over the weekend of 3 to 5 April 2020 at the Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg. The SARL Symposium will be run on Friday 3 April with the SARL AGM on Saturday morning 4 April. The SARL 95 Celebratory Dinner Dance will be held on Saturday evening with Eddie Eksteen and the LM Radio Band.
Why SARL 95? The SARL will be 95 years old in 2020 and application will be made for a special call sign.
Members are hereby invited to submit motions for discussion at the AGM, as well as submit nominations for the various SARL Awards and Trophies. A call is also made to fill the five vacancies on Council as per the Constitution and Rules. The Councilors stepping down, may be nominated if they are willing to stand. The relevant documents can be found on the AGM Documents page in the Members Only section. The closing date for motions and nominations is midnight on Friday 31 January 2020 and must be sent to the SARL Secretary.
WRC-19 OPENS ON 28 OCTOBER
The World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 is due to open in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Monday 28 October. The meeting, which lasts four weeks, will be attended by three thousand delegates from most of the countries around the world and will discuss and agree changes to the ITU Radio Regulations.
The IARU and its member societies will be there, representing the amateur and amateur satellite services with a team of 14 people from 10 countries. Of particular interest to the IARU are the positions on:
Agenda Item (AI) 1.1, to allocate spectrum in the 50 - 54 MHz Region in Region 1 to the amateur service
AI 1.13 to consider new spectrum of International Mobile Telecommunications, which potentially might impact amateur spectrum at around 47 GHz
AI 1.16 which could impact the 5 GHz amateur spectrum
AI 9.1.6 on Wireless Power Transmission, where harmonics of WPT systems can impact the MF/HF radio spectrum
AI 10 - where it is possible that future agenda items at WRC-23 could impact the amateur service, including the 1 240 - 1 300 MHz band.
This meeting is the culmination of four years' work by IARU in ITU and regional telecommunications organizations to protect and enhance amateur service frequency allocations. The IARU team will provide updates as the Conference progresses. The WRC has a wide-ranging agenda of which the amateur issues are but a small part. For more information about the WRC visit www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/conferences/wrc/Pages/default.aspx.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
RaDAR CHALLENGE ON 2 NOVEMBER
The third and last RaDAR Challenge for 2019 takes place from 00:00 UTC to 23:59 UTC on Saturday 2 November 2019, but you only need to operate for four hours. The RaDAR Challenge is not a contest as such, it is an individual challenge. All amateur bands are allowed including cross band contacts via amateur radio satellites. Modes CW, SSB, FM or any legal amateur radio digital mode. As from 2019 the WARC bands will be included.
The exchange is your call sign, your name, RS(T) report and grid locator. The grid locator of six characters is acceptable but should preferably be accurate to 8 or 10 characters for higher position accuracy. You earn 1 point per QSO and then there are multipliers to be used. Get all the information on page 30 of the 2019 SARL Blue Book.
VHF AND RF NOISE WORKSHOP ON 23 NOVEMBER 2019
Book now for the last event of 2019. The VHF and RF Noise Workshop will be held at the NARC on Saturday 23 November 2019. The programme and the booking form are available by following the links on the SARL web page. Learn how to mitigate mains generated noise affecting HF and VHF weak signals, new beacons update, the telegram VHF opening alert system, active antennas, sniff out noise in your shack, inland tropospheric ducting and more.
SAUDI ARABIA AND SEYCHELLES JOIN THE IARU
The IARU member-societies have voted to admit the Saudi Amateur Radio Society (SARS) and Seychelles Amateur Radio Association (SARA) to membership.
SARS was founded on 25 June 2018 and is legally registered/recognized to represent the amateurs of Saudi Arabia. As of January 2019, there were 66 members out of a total of 479 licensed radio amateurs in the country.
SARA was founded in December 2018 and was registered with the Seychelles government on 31 December. SARA has six members, two of whom are licensed. It is believed that there are four licensed amateurs in Seychelles, a number that SARA hopes to increase.
Saudi Arabia and Seychelles are in ITU Region 1 which also corresponds to IARU Region 1. Their IARU membership became effective on 9 October 2019 upon completion of the voting procedure set out in the IARU Constitution.
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 10 to 30 m bands will provide some good DX fun, especially around sunset. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a diary of some upcoming events:
today the CQ Worldwide SSB contest and the Pears HF Competition
2 November the RaDAR Challenge and the Pretoria ARC Flea Market
9 and 10 November the SARL Analogue VHF/UHF Contest
10 November - Remembrance Sunday (101 Years since the end of WW1)
11 November the closing date for RaDAR Logs
18 November the closing date for PEARS HF Logs
23 November the SARL Newbie Sprint and the VHF/RF Noise Workshop
23 and 24 the CQ WW DX CW Contest
30 November the West Rand Flea market
To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:
The results of the October RAE were released yesterday and can be found on the SARL web site. Congratulations to all the successful candidates and we hope to hear you on the air very soon.
Unfortunately, there are a number of candidates who have not completed all the exam administration as required. You will need to provide the missing documentation before your call sign will be issued to you.
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.
