SARL NEWS - SUNDAY 31 JULY 2011

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 web stream, visit
www.sarl.org.za, click on 'Amateur Radio Today' 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 also subscribe to receive future bulletins by e-mail.

Your newsreader this morning is (name), (call sign), on 145,725 and
7,066 MHz from Pretoria, with relays on 7,066 and 3,695 MHz SSB.

SILENT KEY

It is with regret that it must be announced that the key of Robert
Boulanger, ZS6ARC, became silent on Wednesday 27 July2011 after a long
period with Alzheimer. Condolences to his wife Claire, three sons and
daughter, other relatives and friends.

(PAUSE)

In the news today:

ARRL NAMES LARRY PRICE, W4RA, PRESIDENT EMERITUS

SARL TO CONSIDER AN ON-THE-AIR YOUTH FORUM

IARU REGION 1 CONFERENCE

RADIO TECHNOLGY IN ACTION SYMPOSIUMS 2012

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

ARRL NAMES LARRY PRICE, W4RA, PRESIDENT EMERITUS

Dr Larry Price who served as ARRL President from 1984-1992 and served
previously as a Vice Director, Director and Vice President of the ARRL
Board of Directors was named as the ARRL President Emeritus at the
recently held meeting of the ARRL Board.

Larry also served for 10 years as Secretary of the International
Amateur Radio Union (IARU) and another 10 years as that organization's
President. Dr Price continues to serve the IARU as an expert
consultant and has been recognized as President Emeritus by the IARU's
Administrative Council. In celebration of Dr Price's service to the
Amateur Radio Service and in recognition of his 60th anniversary as a
radio amateur, the Board named him President Emeritus of the ARRL.

The SARL has congratulated Larry and thanked him for his many years of
service to amateur radio.

SARL TO CONSIDER AN ON-THE-AIR YOUTH FORUM

During its meeting to discuss the various new initiatives highlighted
in the annual report, the SARL Council considered the formation of an
on-the-air youth forum. The objective is to create a space where young
radio amateurs can share ideas and talk to each other. The forum will
be run on an intecnet basis with connections to various repeaters and
HF.

One proposal is to run it once a month at an early evening time slot.
Council would like the first forum to get on the air in early
December. Comments and suggestions are invited from young radio
amateurs on which day of the week and at what time the forum should be
run. The objective is to get the youth to manage the monthly event and
to form a steering committee.

If you are under 25 and are interested in running and participating in
the forum send an email to HYPERLINK "
with your contact details and how you would like
the idea to be implemented. Please mark the subject line SARL Youth
Forum.

SARL WEB PROGRESS REPORT

The interim move to another server at the current ISP has stabilized
access to the SARL web. The move to another ISP is making progress.
Several of the issues with the various data bases interacting with
some of the services on the web have been resolved and full testing is
expected later next week. The SARL council is planning several new
features and content which will be implemented over a period of time
once the move to the new ISP has been completed.

IARU REGION 1 CONFERENCE

In two weeks time delegates to the IARU conference will be arriving in
South Africa to deliberate on the many agenda items. You can find the
motions and agenda as well as other interesting information on
HYPERLINK "http://www.iaru2011.org.za" www.iaru2011.org.za. During the
weeklong conference a special event station, ZS6IARU, will be on the
air. Listen out for many exotic callsigns as delegates from over 50
countries take to the air using ZS6/ their own callsign.

The Region 1 conference will be followed by the IARU Administrative
Council meeting. This is the first time since the formation of the
IARU in 1925 that the conference and the AC meeting are held on the
African continent.

RADIO TECHNOLGY IN ACTION SYMPOSIUMS 2012

The SARL Council has started planning the 2012 Radio Technology in
Action symposiums and is inviting your proposals on subjects you would
like to see covered. The theme will be RTA2012 back to Amateur Radio
Basics, a mix of new technologies, practical amateur radio and
operating. Send in your ideas and suggested speakers you would like to
be approached. The address to write to is HYPERLINK
" . By the end of August all the
ideas and proposal will be considered and for your input your name
will go into a lucky draw for the ARRL Antenna Book valued at R480.

MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS KEEP A STEADY FLOW

As today is month end please send in your membership renewals,
invoices were mailed some time back. The cutoff date is today but as
in the past the SARL gives another month grace with the final cutoff
date on 31 August. If you are not sure how much to pay or lost the
invoice, call Mariska on Monday at 011 675 2393 or send her an email
to HYPERLINK " .

To date a thousand members have renewed their membership. Thanks to
them for their continued support. If you have not yet rejoined the
ranks of supporters, please do so as soon as possible.

NEW AFRICAN COUNTRY

Huge pileups are reported for the ST0R DXpedition to the world's
newest independent country of the Republic of the South Sudan. Online
DX News site dxcoffee.com says the group expects to be on the air on
all bands between 160 and 6 metres, operating mostly in CW, with
occasional shifts to SSB and RTTY. ST0R is also active on the WARC
bands.

The newly-established Republic of South Sudan is also the latest
addition to amateur radio DX awards lists. It was added to both the
ARRL's DXCC list and the CQ Countrie's list as of July 14, its
admission date to the United Nations.

NEW BANDS FOR THE DUTCH AND SLOVAKIA AMATEURS

OK1RP reports that Radio Amateurs in Slovakia have access to a single
channel in the 5 MHz or 60 meter band. Stations in Slovakia can use
the channel ranging from 5,258 5 to 5,261 5 MHz with a maximum power
of 100 Watt Effective Radiated Power. A special permit is required to
operate in this new band sliver. Licenses are valid for 1 year from
the date of issue which is the same as in the Czech Republic.

Amateurs in the Netherlands now have access to bands at 500 kHz and 70
MHz. This after the Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs, Agriculture &
Innovation issued a Decree on July 6 changing the National Frequency
Plan.

The revised band plan shows an amateur service bands at 501 to 505 kHz
that will remain available until January 1st, 2014. It also shows a
new allocation from 70,0 to 70,5 MHz that has no time limit.

CONTEST NEWS

SARL Winter QRP Contest 16 July 2011

The logs reveal that 72 stations took part during the event. 16 Logs
were submitted including 3 check logs.

Most participating stations used SSB and a few used both CW and SSB, a
few diehards used CW only.

The statistics don't reflect the true state of affairs since most
stations that took part using CW unfortunately did not submit a log.
It was very encouraging to see the renewed interest in using CW in
this event and we sure hope that it will serve to encourage more to
use this mode in future events.

The points advantage of operating with CW is substantial and this can
clearly seen by the results in this contest as the winning station
scored 660 points with 11 contacts.

1st - Pierre van Deventer, ZS6A 1230 points

2nd - Christo van Rensburg, ZS3R 640 points

3rd - Brendon Muller, ZS4DEF 504 points

The winner of the Lucky Draw prize is Dave Cloete, ZR6AOC.

The winner of a 1 year subscription to the SARL is Christo van
Rensburg, ZS3R.

Congratulations to the winners.

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED DURING CONTESTS

It has come to the attention of the SARL Contest Manager, Geoff Levey,
ZS6GRL, that there have been problems encountered between "Contesters"
and "Rag chewers" during contests.

This is an appeal to the "Rag chewers" to please use the contest free
segments of the band plan during contests. In this way conflict will
not occur between the various parties. The frequencies used for
contest purposes have been approved by the IARU are practiced world
wide.

The same appeal goes out to the "contesters" to stay clear of the
contest free segments of the band plan.

The contest free frequencies for phone (SSB) are as follows. Only the
common frequencies that are used in contests are listed.

80 m - 3 650 to 3 700 kHz

40 m - 7 100 to 7 130 kHz

SARL HF PHONE CONTEST

The SARL HF Phone contest will be on the air from 13:00 to 16:30 UTC
on Sunday 7 August 2011. The aim of the HF Phone Contest is for
participants to contact as many radio amateurs in Southern Africa (see
General Rules paragraph 1.b.) as possible in the 20, 40 and 80 m
bands.

You can participate as a Single Operator Single Band, Single Operator
All Band, Multi Operator Single Band or Multi Operator All Band. Club
stations are encouraged to compete. A RS report and a consecutive
serial number starting at 001 is the exchange.

Scoring. Each SSB contact counts 1 point. 2 points are earned per call
area worked on each band and 2 points are earned for each station
worked on all three bands.

The closing date for your log submission is 14 August and the logs
must be sent to the West Rand ARC, PO Box 5344, Weltevredenpark, 1725
or by e-mail to HYPERLINK "
. Please do not use the address in the Contest
Manual.

There are a number of trophies and special prizes to be won, but you
must participate in the contest and submit your log sheet. Get all the
rules on page 62 of the 2011 SARL Contest Manual.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to
be at low levels. However, there is a chance that new, rapidly
emerging flux regions could increase activity to moderate levels at
any time. The visible solar disk consists primarily of three big
sunspot groups numbered 1 260, 1 261 and 1 263. Currently there is a
chance for M-Class flares around both Sunspots 1 260 and 1261 and a
very small risk of an X-Class flare. Each of these sunspot groups is
the size of several planet earths. Sunspot 1 260 is in good position
for any possible earth directed Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs).

For the people doing their own frequency predictions the expected
effective sunspot number for the week will be less than 50.

With the winter here 20 m will provide the best opportunities for DX
followed by 30 m. There is a chance of 15 m openings to South America.

Please visit HYPERLINK "http://www.spaceweather.co.za"
www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.

DIARY OF EVENTS

07 Aug. - SARL HF Phone Competition.

09 Aug. - SARL YL Sprint.

21 Aug. - 3rd leg of SARL Digital Competition.

28 Aug. - SARL HF CW Competition.

Aug. - Send ideas about 2012 Radio Technology in Action symposiums to
HYPERLINK " .

Aug. - Send ideas about proposed youth forum to HYPERLINK
" .

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 to
www.sarl.org.za/newsinbox.asp, not later than the Thursday preceding
the bulletin date.

The SARL also invites you to listen to Amateur Radio Today every
Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on 145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area, with
relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 750 kHz. There is also a podcast by
ZS6RO. For a web-stream and Echolink by ZS6FCS, visit www.sarl.org.za,
click on 'Amateur Radio TODAY', go down the green column and click on
'LISTEN ON THE WEB'. A repeat transmission can be heard on Mondays at
18:30 CAT on 3 230 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 George, ZS6NE.

Thank you for listening, 73.

/EX

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