SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 2 FEBRUARY 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 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:
FIRST ZS TO ANTARCTICA QSO VIA QO-100
THE NEW IARU WEBSITES GO LIVE
and
THE SARL NATIONAL FIELD DAY ON 8 AND 9 FEBRUARY
Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.
THE AWA CW ACTIVITY DAY THIS AFTERNOON
The Antique Wireless Association CW Activity Day takes place from 13:00 to 15:00 UTC this afternoon, with the aim of contacting as many amateurs as possible on the 20, 40 and 80 m amateur bands. The exchange is an RST report, your name and Grid locator and there are 4 classes of participation. Log sheets must be submitted by Monday 17th February 2020 to andyzs6ady@vodamail.co.za. The rules can be found on page 20 of the 2020 SARL Contest Manual.
FIRST ZS TO ANTARCTICA QSO VIA QO-100
At 22:20 UTC (00:20 CAT) on Wednesday morning 29 January, Gary, ZS6YI became the first South African station to make a QSO with Felix at DP0GVN, the station at the German Neumayer Base in Antarctica. Well done Gary!
THE NEW IARU WEBSITES GO LIVE
Earlier in the week the new IARU website at www.iaru.org went live with new material added. The web sites of the three Regions have also gone live and the Region 1 web site can be visited at www.iaru-r1.org. Please take a moment to explore the new Region 1 site and remember that if you link to that site from your own website, you will need to update the hyperlinks to reflect the new page addresses.
Don Beattie, G3BJ, IARU Region 1 President, said, “Thanks go to the many content owners in Region 1 who have reviewed and updated their content as part of the process and to Marko, 9A8MM, the webmaster”.
THE FEBRUARY 2020 RADIO ZS
The February issue of Radio ZS was uploaded to the web on Monday 27 January. In this issue you can read about Electrical Fences, a source of spurious emissions and an interface for the digital modes. The 7X7X DXpedition and the 2019 A21EME Microwave DXpedition feature in this issue. Woody, ZS3WL tells about the yachtswomen with saltwater in her veins and you can find out about receiving the Es’hail-2 Geosat. We discuss the Foxhole Radio in the Museum Piece; there are two articles about baluns and an article about a delta loop antenna. Click on Publications on the left-hand menu on the League website and download Radio ZS.
You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
THE SARL NATIONAL FIELD DAY ON 8 AND 9 FEBRUARY
The first leg of the National Field Day takes place from 10:00 UTC on Saturday 8 February to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 9 February 2020 with Phone, CW and Digital (PSK, FT8 and RTTY) activity on the HF amateur bands, excluding the 2 200, 630, 30, 17 and 12 metre bands.
The are 6 classes of participation to choose from, ranging from a station at home to a station outdoors. The Hibiscus ARC will be operating from a nature reserve, ZS/FF-0462. Equipment for Field Stations may only be set up in the 24 hours prior to the starting time of the contest. This restriction applies to antennas, masts, towers and transmitting equipment, but excludes accommodation such as a caravan, tent, etc.
The exchange is the number of transmitters, the Field Day operating class and the Provincial abbreviation. The sending of a RS or RST is optional – it has nothing to do with the scoring. Each contact with a station from one of the South African provinces counts five points and each DX contact counts one point. There are power, provincial, and class multipliers for the scoring.
Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet labelled “your call sign NFD,” shall be sent by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za.The closing date for log submissions is 17 February 2020. A photo(s) of the station in operation (JPG format) MUST accompany every log entry. The full set of rules can be found on page 37 of the 2020 Contest manual.
THE SUMMER QRP CONTEST
The contest committee reminds participants that the closing date for your log is midnight on Sunday 2 February. Send you log to contest@sarl.org.za
THE RESULTS OF THE WEDNESDAY 80 M CLUB SPRINT
The Contest Committee received 60 logs for the Wednesday 80 m Club Sprint held on Wednesday 15th January. Four of the logs are checklogs.
1st the West Rand ARC – 1 016 points from 20 logs
2nd the Boland ARC – 836 points from 18 logs
3rd the Bo-Karoo ARC – 412 points from 8 logs
4th the Magalies ARC – 134 points from 3 logs
5th the Bloemfontein ARC – 88 points from 1 log
6th the Hibiscus ARC – 82 points from 2 logs
7th the Cape Town ARC – 62 points from 1 log
8th the Rustenburg ARC – 30 points from 1 log
9th the Sandton ARC – 16 points from 1 log
10th the Northern Cape ARC – 10 points from 1 log
Johan, ZS1A worked 17 grids followed by Woody, ZS3WL and Kobus, ZS6BOS with 16 grids and Pieter, ZS6XT, Helgard, ZS6HON and Jadranko, ZS6DJA with 15 grids.
THE RUSTENBURG ARC AGM
The Rustenburg ARC held its AGM on Saturday 25 January. The following members were elected to the committee.
Chairman: Lukas Holtzhausen, ZS6LH
Vice Chairman: Dawid Jansen van Rensburg, ZS6VS
Secretary: Ronel Jansen van Rensburg, ZS6SBV
Technical: Gene Niemand, ZR6CEN and Nols Lochner, ZS6ACL
Congratulations to the committee members.
PROPAGATION REPORT
Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to remain at low levels. There is currently a small sunspot visible, but no flaring is expected. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around two. 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:
Today – the AWA CW Activity Day and the closing date for the Summer QRP contest logs
7th and 8th February – the SARL Council meets at the NARC
8th and 9th February – the SARL National Field Day
13th February – World Radio Day
22nd February – the 2020 AGM Booklet available for download
23rd February – the SARL RTTY Contest
27th February – International Milk Tart Day
28th February – closing date for synopses of AMSAT SA Papers
To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:
The Antique Wireless Association CW Activity Day takes place from 13:00 to 15:00 UTC this afternoon with the aim of contacting as many amateurs as possible on the 20, 40 and 80 m amateur bands. The rules can be found on page 20 of the 2020 SARL Contest Manual.
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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS, edited by Herman Erasmus, ZS6CTA and read by ..............
From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead!
