SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 19 JANUARY 2020
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. 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:
ZS95SARL CELEBRATES 95 YEARS OF AMATEUR RADIO
COUNCIL NOMINATIONS
and
DK3ZL VISITING SOUTHERN AFRICA FROM 17 JANUARY TO 18 MARCH
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
ZS95SARL CELEBRATES 95 YEARS OF AMATEUR RADIO
ICASA has issued the special call sign ZS95SARL to celebrate the 95th birthday of the League during 2020. The call sign was used during the 80 m Club Sprint on Wednesday 15 January for the first time. Council is busy working on a schedule for Clubs to use the call sign during this year. More details will be in next week's bulletin.
THE SARL SUMMER QRP CONTEST
The Summer QRP Contest will be run from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC on Saturday 25 January 2020 using SSB and CW with 5 watts (PEP) output or less. The first hour is limited to the 40 m band only, in the remaining two hours the contesters are free to use any HF (non-WARC) band as they see fit.
The exchange is a RS or RST report and your grid locator. You can also activate a Park, a Beach or a Summit on this Saturday to add to the QRP Contest. Find all the contest information on page 42 of the 2020 SARL Contest Manual.
COUNCIL NOMINATIONS
Five Councillors will be retiring at the 2020 AGM. To date, the SARL Secretary has received four nominations to fill these vacancies. Members are invited to submit nominations to serve on Council, the nomination form is available on the AGM Documents page on the League web site and from the SARL Secretary. The closing date for the nominations is Friday 31 January 2020. This is also the closing date for SARL Awards and Trophies as well as motion for the AGM.
FIVE YEAR LICENCES
The Council has received numerous complaints about members paying for a 5 year licence, but only receiving a licence for 1 year. Members in this situation are requested to send a copy of their licence and proof of payment to the League Secretary as soon as possible. Send the documents to secretary@sarl.org.za
A FURTHER CALL FOR PAPERS FOR THE SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION.
Papers for the annual SARL Symposium on 3 April 2020 entitled "Unlocking Amateur Technology" are invited. The symposium is part of the SARL National Convention which will be held at the Wanderers Conference Centre in Illovo. Send a brief synopsis to artoday@sarl.org.za before 31 January. Registration for the event will open later this week.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
AMSAT SA ANNOUNCES A NEW DATE FOR THEIR SPACE SYMPOSIUM
The annual AMSAT SA Space symposium date has changed to Saturday 11 July 2020. While the call for papers is ongoing till the end of February, AMSAT SA is pleased to announce that Burns Fisher, WB1FJ, of AMSAT NA will delivery two papers at the symposium: Fox-in-a-box: Fox telemetry reception using an inexpensive Raspberry Pi and a J-pole antenna including a discussion on the optimal positioning for a J-pole antenna for satellite reception and an overview of what is in orbit currently and expected in the near future and their features. Prospective authors are invited to propose other papers by submitting a brief synopsis to admin@amsatsa.org.za before 28 February 2020.
DK3ZL VISITING SOUTHERN AFRICA FROM 17 JANUARY TO 18 MARCH
Dr Charly Eichhorn, DK3ZL is visiting southern Africa from 17 January to 18 March. In Namibia, he will operate as V51QO with activity on the QO-100 satellite and V5/DK3ZL at other times using SSB and CW. Charly, ZS1/DL3ZL will spend 5 days in Cape Town around the end of 29 February. In March, Charly will pay a visit to Gary Immelman, ZS6YI and spend a night or two with Gary and his family. Charly will give a talk about QO-100 to the amateurs in the region. Listen out for ZS6/DL3ZL. Charly has also applied for a call sign for Botswana for his visit from 7 to 11 February and for 4 days in the middle of March.
The QO-100 portable equipment used by Charly is an ADALM Pluto (with modifications by Sigi, DG9BFC) using a SDR-Radio.com console v3 by Simon Brown with a 20 W PA (by Sigi, DG9BFC) into a dual feed POTY (by Joerg, DJ4ZZ) into a 90 cm off-set dish fixed on a tripod.
More and updated information is available on the DL3ZL QRZ.COM page.
QSLs for V55QO is via LoTW, direct (SASE or SAE plus 2 US $) or via the bureau to DL3ZL. At the end of the DXpedition, Charly will leave the two stations he brought with him, in Namibia and will be regularly active on QO-100. In addition to the already active Derek, V51DM, Werner, V51JP, President of the NARL and Robert, V51RS will continue with the call V55QO, which DL3ZL initiated. For all the QSOs made by these call signs via QO-100, DL3ZL is the QSL Manager.
THE WEDNESDAY 80 M CLUB SPRINT
The first leg of the Wednesday 80 m Club Sprint was held on Wednesday 15 January and stations from ZS1 to ZS6 were heard and worked. The Contest Committee has so far received 40 logs from ZS1, ZS3, ZS4, ZS5 and ZS6. Logs must be submitted by 23:59 CAT tonight 19 January 2020 to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za. The next Club Sprint takes place on Saturday 29 February and will run on 40 metres.
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 15 to 30 m bands will provide some good DX fun. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.
Finally, a diary of some upcoming events:
Tonight at 23:59 – the closing date for 80 m Club Sprint logs
25 January – the Summer QRP Contest; Cape Town ARC Meeting
31 January – Closing date for AGM motions, SARL Award nominations and Council nominations.
1 February – the SARL VHF/UHF QSO Party
2 February – the AWA CW Activity Day
7 and 8 February – the SARL Council meets at the NARC
8 and 9 February – the SARL National Field Day
13 February – World Radio Day
22 February – the 2020 AGM Booklet available for download
23 February – the SARL RTTY Contest
To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:
ICASA has issued the special call sign ZS95SARL to celebrate the 95th birthday of the League during 2020. The call sign was used during the 80 m Club Sprint on Wednesday 15 January for the first time. Council is busy working on a schedule for Clubs to use the call sign during this year. More details will be in next week's bulletin.
This concludes our bulletin for this morning.
We invite clubs and individuals to submit news items of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, in both English and Afrikaans if possible, 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!
