SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 08 DECEMBER 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 2020 PARKS-ON-THE-AIR PROGRAMME
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SARL UNLOCKING AMATEUR RADIO TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM
and
AMSAT SA TO SHIFT MAIN FOCUS TO AFRICUBE, A DIGITAL SDR CUBESAT
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
We begin this bulletin with the news of a silent key:
It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Daryl Lamble, ZS6DLL in the early hours of Sunday 1 December. Daryl was a keen CW operator took on the challenge of training others in CW. He was awarded the 2018 Jeffrey Wright Trophy by the AWA for contributing the most to CW and he was responsible for seeing an increase in CW on the bands and had an absolute passion for it.
Our deepest condolences to his wife Kim, daughters Kevone and Bianca, family and friends.
SARL News has heard that Gerard de Jong, ZS6KX has become a silent key, but has no further information.
PAUSE
THE 2020 PARKS-ON-THE-AIR PROGRAMME
At present there are 545 Parks registered for Southern Africa on the Worldwide Fauna and Flora database – 8 in Eswatini, 7 in Lesotho, 13 in Botswana, 10 in Mozambique, 26 each in Namibia and Zimbabwe and 455 in South Africa. The Southern African Parks-on-the-Air programme will run 1 January to 31 December 2020 with various awards available for activators and chasers.
For an activity to be valid, you must make sure you and all your gear are inside the reserve, on foot, bicycle, motorbike, car, motorhome. You must make 10 QSOs (44 QSOs for the international awards) for your activity to count towards an activator award, but the QSOs can be made over a number of days. You can only work from one reference at a time - so if you are in a park that is a sub-region of a larger park you can only use the reference of the sub-region. You will also have to provide photographic proof of your activity using pictures of a GPS device (car navigation for example), park signs and your set-up.
The Park-on-the-Air website and the various awards are being finalised and more information will be available in the January 2020 issue of Radio ZS.
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SARL UNLOCKING AMATEUR RADIO TECHNOLOGY SYMPOSIUM
This is the first call for papers to be presented at the second SARL Unlocking Amateur Radio Technology symposium to be held at the Wanderers Conference Centre in Johannesburg on Friday 3 April 2020. Following the very successful event in Stellenbosch last year, the same format will be followed. The symposium will open with registration at 13:00 with the conference starting at 14:00 and will conclude at 19:00 with a cocktail event.
Prospective authors are invited to submit a short synopsis of their proposed paper, in a Word file, by Wednesday 15 January 2020 for review. The final programme will be published by Friday 31 January 2020. The speaking slots are 20 minutes with 10 minutes allocated for questions and answers. There will also be four "quick fire" sessions of 10 minutes each. Send proposals to artotoday@sarl.org.za
The Unlocking Amateur Radio Technology Symposium is part of the SARL National Convention which includes the Annual General Meeting and annual Awards Dinner. Diarise the weekend of 3 to 5 April 2020 as an Amateur Radio experience not to be missed.
AMSAT SA TO SHIFT MAIN FOCUS TO AFRICUBE, A DIGITAL SDR CUBESAT
The AMSAT CubeSat development team has shifted their CubeSat development focus from an analogue transponder to a digital SDR based unit. The development of the AfriCUBE digital SDR transponder under the leadership of Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC has reached an advanced stage and will soon be ready to undergo its first field trials.
The team is not abandoning the development of the KLETSKous analogue transponder, which performed well during the BACAR 7 flight on 12 October 2019. Leon Lessing, ZS6LMG has taken the development to this point but unfortunately, due to personal commitments, cannot continue to work on Kletskous. "I would like to thank Leon for his support and wish him well in his future endeavours," Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, AMSAT SA CubeSat project leader said.
During the BACAR flight test it showed that some further development is needed to improve the transponder's receiver sensitivity. "Here is a great opportunity for young enthusiastic engineers in the amateur radio community to take on the challenge. I invite interested persons with RF experience to contact me and become part of the team. While there is no financial reward, the experience and achieving something great that will fly in space outweighs this many times. It will certainly look good on anyone's CV", Hannes said.
The EPS (electronic power system), space frame and stabilisation system are complete. The development of the solar panel and antenna deployment systems are making good progress. Frik Wolf, ZS6FZ said he will be ready by mid-January 2020 for project review and field testing.
Currently work on a new onboard control system has been paused while Fritz Sutherland, ZS6FSJ is working with Anton Janovsky to get AfricaCUBE ready for on-the-air trials.
Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL will continue work on the documentation crucial to secure a launch opportunity and Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV will work on frequency allocations and explore launch opportunities and the marketing of the project.
AMSAT SA is continuing its dialogue with SANSA and its contractor to place a transponder on EOSAT- 1, a planned high performance earth-observation satellite designed to produce data for a broad range of earth observation applications. The development of AfriCUBE will enhance this opportunity.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE 2020 SARL DIARY OF EVENTS
The 2020 SARL Diary of Events is available for download from the Diary of Events link on the left side of the League website. It is a 25 page A4 landscape document.
THE FINAL RESULTS OF THE 2019 SARL WEDNESDAY 80 M CLUB SPRINT
The final results of the 2019 SARL Wednesday 80 m Club Sprint has been published in HF Happenings 876 which is available from the HF Happenings page on the League website. 98 radio amateurs submitted 242 log sheets for the 5 Wednesday Club Sprints and made 3 549 QSOs. The 98 radio amateurs represent 16 Clubs.
The 80 m Club Sprint will continue with sprints in January, March, May, July, September and November 2020. The SARL 95 40 m Club Sprint will be run on Saturdays in February, April, June, August, October and December.
Congratulations to the members of the Boland ARC on winning the SARL 80 m Club Trophy.
JOIN THE AMSAT SA CUBESAT TEAM
AMSAT SA invites radio amateurs with RF, electronic and software experience to join the Satellite Development team and contribute to technology and human capital development in South Africa. The team meets every alternate Monday on a Skype conference and quarterly face-to-face. Send your contact details and your main interest in the CubeSat project to admin@amsatsa.org.za. Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP or another team member will contact you.
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 17 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:
9 December – the closing date for the Newbie Party log sheets
14 December – the Geminids meteor shower
14 and 15 December – the ARRL 10 m contest
16 December – Reconciliation Day
22 December – Summer Solstice
23 December – the Ursids meteor shower
25 December – Christmas Day
26 December - Family Day
31 December – the end of the 2019 CQ DX Marathon and the YOTA month
To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:
At present there are 545 Parks registered for Southern Africa on the Worldwide Fauna and Flora database – 8 in Eswatini, 7 in Lesotho, 13 in Botswana, 10 in Mozambique, 26 each in Namibia and Zimbabwe and 455 in South Africa. The Southern African Parks-on-the-Air programme will run 1 January to 31 December 2020 with various awards available for activators and chasers.
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 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 Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY, edited by Paul Johnson ZS1S and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead.
