SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 16 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:

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM COUNCIL?

SARL RTTY CONTEST AND 40 M CLUB SPRINT

and

REMEMBER TO PAY YOUR AMATEUR RADIO LICENCE

Stay tuned for more information on these and other interesting news items.

We start the bulletin with news of three silent keys

It is with deep regret that we announce that the keys of Percy Woolley ZS6KPW, Neil Nathan, ZS4NN and Bill van Zyl, ZS6REV went silent in the past week.

Percy passed away on Tuesday 11 February 2020, our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Niel passed away of Wednesday 12 February 2020, our sincere condolences to his wife Dorrie, son Colin, family and friends.

Bill passed away on Thursday 13 February 2020 after a long battle with cancer. Bill was a former chairman of the West Rand Club from 1999 till 2001. Our condolences go to Petro, Gerhardt and Willem and their families and friends.

PAUSE

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM COUNCIL – “TIPS FOR NICO!”

As no motions for discussion were received for the 2020 Annual General Meeting, Council has decided to ask members “what do you want from Council?” or “Tips for Nico.” Agenda point 11 for the AGM is Discussion Points and this is where your comment or suggestion will be discussed. If you have a Tip for Nico, please send it by e-mail to secretary@sarl.org.za, the closing date is midnight on Wednesday 26 March 2020.
2020 NATIONAL CONVENTION BOOKLET

The 2020 National Convention Booklet will be available for download from Saturday 22 February. It will be on the AGM documents page on the League web site.

SARL RTTY CONTEST AND 40 M CLUB SPRINT

The SARL RTTY Contest takes place from 14:00 UTC to 17:00 UTC on Sunday 23 February 2020 with activity on 80, 40 and 20 metres. A station may be contacted on each band. The exchange is an RSQ report and your grid square (first 4 digits) e.g. KG33. Contacts with stations in South Africa, eSwatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Botswana, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Marion Island, Reunion, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mayotte and the Comoros are worth 3 points. Contacts with stations in the rest of the world are worth 1 point. Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet and labelled “your call sign Digital Contest,” shall be submitted by 2 March 2020 by e-mail to contest@sarl.org.za.

The first leg of the SARL 95 40 m Club Sprint takes place from 12:00 to 13:00 UTC on Saturday 29 February with CW activity on 7 000 to 7 040 kHz and phone activity on 7 130 to 7 200 kHz. The exchange is a RS or RST report and 4 character grid square (e.g. KG30). You score 2 points for every QSO and 2 points for the first QSO with each grid square. Log sheets in MS Excel format ONLY shall be submitted by 23:59 CAT on Saturday 7 March by e-mail to zs4bfn@mweb.co.za. When submitting log sheets, it should be renamed by the participant to include his/her call sign. The name of the operators Club must be shown on the log sheet.

REPEATERS AND BEACONS

Clubs are requested to send the following information to Phillip, ZS6PVT, the chairman on the SARL Repeater Working Group – the licence number and call sign of your repeater, digipeater and beacon, the frequency and the location of the device – latitude and longitude. Send this information to zs6pvt@gmail.com by Wednesday 26 March 2020. The information is required to update the database. Information about HF Beacons must be sent to the Region 1 HF Beacon Coordinator at zs4bs@iaru-r1.org

You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.

AMSAT SA SPACE SYMPOSIUM

The AMSAT SA Space Symposium will be held on 11 July 2020. Prospective authors are invited to propose papers by submitting a brief synopsis to admin@amsatsa.org.za before 28 February 2020.

REMEMBER TO PAY YOUR AMATEUR RADIO LICENCE

Radio Amateurs are reminded that it is their responsibility to ensure their license is up to date. If for some reason no invoice is received, it could be the Post Office, or you have changed your address without notifying ICASA. The change of address form is at www.sarl.org.za/public/ICASA/ICASA_Docs.asp.

You can pay your licence without an invoice – you need your licence number and the licence fee is R154 for 1 year; R294 for 2 years; R422 for 3 years; R537 for 4 years and R642 for 5 years. ICASA banks with Nedbank, account number: 14 62 00 29 27, Branch Code: 146245 - Corporate Client Services – Pretoria and in the reference field of the deposit, type in your licence number and call sign.

Avoid the hassles of having to renew each year, opt for a multi-year licence. Simply, when renewing pay the appropriate amount. On the EFT state 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 year licence and your licence number. Also send a copy of the EFT payment by e-mail to specrev@icasa.org.za and dkuhrau@icasa.org.za.

Amateur Radio Clubs are reminded that it is their responsibility to ensure their Club and Repeater licenses are up to date.

SA MARITIME MOBILE WEATHER NET ON 20 METRES

Woody Collett, ZS3WL reports that the Maritime Mobile Weather Net has been able to restore communications on 14 316 MHz as from 12 February 2020. The bulletin and synopsis for the High Seas Meteorological Area 7 is being broadcast daily at 06:35 UTC as well as 11:35 UTC on 20 metres. The net controller is Kelvin, ZS5IW. The Maritime Net also use 7 120 Mhz.

LOOKING FOR A REASON FOR A SPECIAL EVENT CALL SIGN?

Is your club looking for a reason to host a special event call sign during 2020? Well the first 1820 Settlers arrived at Cape Town on Friday 17 March 1820. More 1820 Settlers arrived in Algoa Bay in about 60 different parties between April and June 1820 and were settled in the Albany district of the Eastern Cape.

And on Friday 20 October 1820, the King George IV authorised the British Admiralty to establish a Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope in order to provide accurate star positions to assist ships navigating the treacherous waters of the Cape. This later became the South African Astronomical Observatory.

RESULTS OF THE SUMMER QRP CONTEST

The contest committee received 5 logs for the Summer QRP Contest. are as follows: Only 5 logs were received.

1st the West Rand ARC - 102 points
2nd Andre Le Roux, ZS2AL - 65 points
3rd the Sandton ARC - 48 points
4th Stephen Rough, ZS6STE - 5 points
5th Johannes van Zijl, ZS4DZ - 4 points

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:

22 February – the 2020 AGM Booklet available for download
23 February – the SARL RTTY Contest
27 February – International Milk Tart Day
28 February – closing date for synopses of AMSAT SA Papers
29 February – the West Rand Flea Market and the SARL 95 40 m Club Sprint
1 March – the SARL Hamnet 40 m Contest
5 to 8 March – Hobby-X and ZS95SARL
7 March – the Cape Town ARC Flea Market
8 March – International Women’s Day and the SARL YL Sprint

To conclude our bulletin, a quick overview of our main news item:

As no motions for discussion were received for the 2020 Annual General Meeting, Council has decided to ask members “what do you want from Council?” or “Tips for Nico.” Agenda point 11 for the AGM is Discussion Points and this is where your comment or suggestion will be discussed. If you have a Tip for Nico, please send it by e-mail to secretary@sarl.org.za, the closing date is midnight on Wednesday 26 March 2020.

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 Dave Reece, ZS1DFR and read by ..............

From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead!