SARL NEWS SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2009

You are listening to ZS6SRL, the official radio station of the South
African Radio League, the national body for amateur radio in South
Africa, with a news bulletin every Sunday at 08:15 CAT in Afrikaans and
at 08:30 CAT in English. To listen to a webstream, visit
www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI and follow the links for details. PLEASE
NOTE: for audio via Echolink, connect to ZS0JPL-R.

You can download this bulletin and previous ones from www.sarl.org.za
and subscribe to receive future bulletins by e-mail. Your news reader
this morning is (name), (call sign), on 145,725 and 7,066 MHz from
Pretoria, with relays on 28,325, 14,235, 10,130, 7,066 and 3,695 MHz
SSB, as well as 52,750, 438,825 and 1 296 MHz FM in the Pretoria area.
(Other newsreaders please change to suit).

In the news today.

SUMBANDILASAT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED

REPEATER FREQUENCY PLANNING

You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and
other important and interesting news items.

We start today's SARL News with good wishes to our Jewish listeners who
are celebrating their new year this weekend. To our Jewish friends "May
you be inscribed for a good year!"

SUMBANDILASAT SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED

Third time lucky! SumbandilaSat was successfully launched on 17
September at 17:55:09 CAT (Central African Time) after the launch had
to be postponed twice, once due to heavy winds and the second attempt
due to the fuel pressure in the feed line which was four times too low
and thus caused the fuelling process to take too long to be completed
in time for launch.

The satellite was released from the rocket while over the Antarctic and
accessed by the ground station at the Stellenbosch University ten
minutes later when the first command was sent to "wake up" the
satellites. Despite the low elevation orbit of less than 10 degrees
SumbandilaSat responded well with its first telemetry. On a pass on
Friday morning the SunSpace team confirmed that the transponder, which
also carries the amateur radio facility, was operating well.

Earlier in September a team of SunSpace Engineers unpacked the
satellite at the Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan and carried out
a full systems test. All systems performed to specification. The
amateur radio payload was tested from a little distance to check radio
signal levels. All three systems, the voice beacon, the parrot repeater
and the VHF/UHF FM repeater performed flawlessly.

Next, SumbandilaSat was integrated on the launch platform and made
ready for launch. Prior to the assembly being transported to the launch
platform, the batteries were given their last top-up.

An intensive period of payload qualification will now follow during
which each system will be tested. This is expected to take up to 3
months after which the command will shift to the CSIR's Satellite
Application Centre at Hartbeeshoek, west of Pretoria.

The voice beacon message was recorded by Anton Coetzee, at the time a
learner at the Technical High School Kimberley. His message was
selected from entries in a competition to find the best message with
which to launch SumbandilaSat. It reads: "This is ZSOSUM in space. I am
the voice of the South African youth. We are knocking on the door of
opportunity, marking our place in the orbit of space research and
communication. Hear us! Listen to us!

Visit www.amsatsa.org.za, listen to the beacon message as well as the
first set of Keplerian elements

Once the main payload, a Multi-spectral imager, which has a 6,25 m
Ground Sampling Distance (GSD), with 6 spectral bands and is supported
by an on-board storage of 24 Giga byte of memory and a main downlink of
72 Mb/s is fully put into service, will a schedule be set up according
to which the various experimental payloads on board will be operated.
The SA AMSAT web will publish regular updates. Listen on 435,350 during
passes over South Africa. At some stage SunSpace will be testing the
amateur payload. If early notice is received it will be published on
www.amsatsa.org.za.

REPEATER FREQUENCY PLANNING

At the repeater frequency planning meeting held last Saturday Riaan
Greeff, ZS4PR, has undertaken to put a working group together to bring
all the current information up to date. As part of that process all
clubs and repeater co-ordinators are requested to bring the details
currently on the SARL web up to date before 30 September. On 30
September the repeater pages on the web will be removed and a process
will be started to correlate frequencies and data with licenses. This
is step one in the process. More details will be made available on how
the process will develop from there. The important point is to bring
your repeater information on the SARL web up to date before 30
September.

A process is in place to make contact with clubs and their repeater
co-ordinators to resolve any anomalies before any further action will
be taken. Your urgent co-operation will be appreciated. For any queries
please contact Riaan Greeff by email to .

CONTEST NEWS

On Wednesday evening, J B Coetzee, the 3 year old the son of Gerhard,
ZS3TG, did the draw for the ARRL Basic Antenna Handbook for the logs
submitted for the SARL HF Phone contest. The winning call sign belongs
to Geoff Levey, ZS6GRL. Congratulations Geoff.

The first YL Sprint (9 August) brought in eight logs from the beautiful
ladies and two logs from the men folk. The sprint was well received and
will be on the calendar for 2010. The results are as follows: 1st
Rosalie van Loggerenberg, ZR2RL, 140 points [now ZS2DN] 2nd Colette
Rundle, ZS2CR, 131 points 3rd Pam Momberg, ZS6APT, 100 points 4th Dawn
Snyders, ZS5ME, 62 points 5th Melinda Mynhardt, ZU6MM, 45 points 6th
Michelle Harris, ZS4M, 33 points 7th Pauline Hollis, ZS1PLN, 32 points
8th Martin Smith, ZS5M, 14 points 9th Mary Ann Meyer, ZU5MAM, 5 points

Check log: Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 12 points

ZS4SRK invites everyone to start planning for the September 2009.
Support your heritage by activation of Blockhouses, heritage sites or
just some historic site where you had lost your glasses! Send your
ideas and plans to the ZS4SRK club secretary by e-mail to
so they can know where to point their 40 m antennas. Both CW and SSB
will be on the air. The frequencies to be used for the Heritage Day
Sprint on 24 September are 7,000 to 7,025 MHz for CW and 7,060 to 7,100
MHz and 7,130 to 7,200 MHz for phone. Submit logs to The Sasolburg
Amateur Radio Club, ZS4SRK, PO Box 28194, Sonlandpark, 1944 or via
email to . The closing date for log submissions is
6 October 2009.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is still at a
minimum. The visible solar disk is void of any sunspots. Solar activity
is at some of the lowest levels ever recorded.

20 and 40 m will provide best opportunities for DX. Conditions to the
East and the West will be good from the afternoon onwards. During the
late afternoon and early evenings it will be good towards Europa. In
the mornings it may be possible to make contacts with Australia.
Contacts with New-Zealand may be possible on 40 m during the evenings.
During the early mornings and evenings 40 m contacts may be possible
with Brazil.

Local conditions are going to be good on 40 m during the day time. 80 m
may perform well during the early mornings and late afternoons over the
shorter distances. 30 m will perform well over the longer distances
during the middle of the day.

80 m is the frequency of choice in the evenings.

Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.

DIARY OF EVENTS

18 to 20 September - SARL VHF/UHF Contests; 19 September - Hamnet
Gauteng South and Ekurhuleni DMSCV training exercise; 24 September -
Heritage Day sprint; 24 September - Deadline for entries for the
October RAE; 6 October - Logs for Heritage Day sprint to be in to
.

SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news items of
interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners. Submit news items,
if possible, in both English and Afrikaans only to
www.sarl.org.za/newsinbox.asp, not later than the Thursday preceding
the bulletin date.

The SARL also invites you to listen to the Amateur Radio Mirror
International programme every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750
MHz in the Pretoria area, with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 570 kHz.
There is also a podcast by ZS6RO. For the webstream and Echolink by
ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za, click on 'ARMI' and follow the links. A
repeat transmission can be heard Mondays at 21:00 CAT on 3 215 kHz.
Sentech sponsors the ARMI transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.


You have listened to a bulletin of the South African Radio League,
compiled by Roger, ZR3RC, and edited by George, ZS6NE.

Thank you for listening, 73.
/EX