SARLNEWS 23 September 2012

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. 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 3,695 MHz SSB. (Other
newsreaders change to suit).

SILENT KEYS

It is with regret that it must be announced that the keys of two radio
amateurs went silent recently, they a

That of Rowan Baumgarten, ZS6BIB, on the 15 September 2012. Rowan was a
valued committee member of the Alberton Amateur Radio Club. He promoted
amateur radio at Jota, Scopex, War museum, Air shows and where ever he
could and was part of the RP foundations Cycle race - Ride for Sight as
lead and commentary vehicle for 18 years.

That of Martin Harper, ZS6MSG, previously ZS5VO, became silent on the
17th September. Marten was a keen Hamnet member.

Our sincerest condolences to the relatives and friends of the deceased.

(PAUSE)

In the news today:

HERITAGE DAY SPRINT

RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION SYMPOSIUM

MTN RADIO AMATEUR OF THE YEAR AWARDS

LOOKING AHEAD TO WRC-15

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

HERITAGE DAY SPRINT

Aim is to stimulate activity on 40 m and to promote public relations
with respect to the various Heritage sites in South Africa on 24
September starting at 10:00 UTC and ending at 13:00 UTC (12:00 to 15:00
CAT. Only frequencies in the following segments may be used. CW: 7000
to 7025 kHz; phone: 7060 to 7100 kHz and 7130 to 7200 kHz. A maximum
output power of 100 W is allowed.

The exchange is call sign, RS(T) signal report, a serial number
commencing with 001 and the letter indicating the station type - B for
blockhouses, H for other heritage sites and G for general stations.
Example: 59 001 B. For stations at blockhouses and heritage sites,
field station rules apply as per the SARL blue book.

Scoring - CW - 12 points for every contact with a station at a South
African block house or other heritage site and 4 points for every other
station. Radio Phone scoring - 8 points for every contact with a
station at a South African block house or other heritage site and 2
points for every other station.

Multipliers - Blockhouse (B) and Heritage (H) stations use a multiplier
of 3 (x3); General (G) stations use no multiplier (x1). Electronic logs
are required and may be in any standard logging format or MS Excel. No
paper logs, scanned images or pdf files will be accepted, except as
check logs. E-mail logs to riaanzs4pr[at]gmail[dot]com and send a copy
to fwolff[at]global[dot]co[dot]za.

Closing date for log submissions is 9 October 2012.

RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION SYMPOSIUM

Pre-booking for Cape Town closes Wednesday evening.

The last in the 2012 series of the SARL Radio Technology in Action
Symposiums will be held in Cape Town on 29 September at the Cape
Peninsula University of Technology Bellville Campus. The full programme
and registration forms are now available from the SARL website. Click
on RTA or the link in the news update centre stage on the home page.

Pre-booking assists with catering arrangements and guarantees that you
will be able to get the CD and the SDR kit at the meeting. Pre booking
closes on Wednesday evening. After that bookings will only be taken on
the day.

The challenge is on for the Western Cape Radio Amateurs to beat the
Gauteng record of close to 100 participants, currently pre-bookings are
approaching 50. Please make use of the pre-booking facility and stand a
change to win an ARRL Basic Antenna book. The booking form can be
downloaded from the SARL website.

MTN RADIO AMATEUR OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Nominations close on 5 October.

Here is an opportunity to recognise a radio amateur that has made a
contribution to amateur radio. There are three categories:

GARTH MILNE TECHNICAL INNOVATION AWARD The award is made for the
support, development and application of Technological Innovation in
Amateur Radio in South Africa. The recipient will be a person who has
promoted the use of technology in amateur radio at club level,
nationally, at schools or a tertiary education institution.

MTN RADIO AMATEUR OF THE YEAR AWARD The award is made for the support
and development of the Amateur Radio Service in South Africa, not for
individual achievements such as DXCC and other operational awards or
contests. The recipient will be a person who has given of his or her
expertise and time to the promotion of Amateur Radio in South Africa.

MTN AMATEUR RADIO COMMUNITY SERVICE AWARD Annually the South African
Amateur Radio Development Trust is recognising a radio amateur or a
group of radio amateurs for service to the community.

Community service can be assistance to a handicapped radio amateur,
communications support during a sporting event or a disaster situation
like a road accident or a natural disaster like a flood, veld fires, or
an earthquake. Nominations are invited for an individual or a group of
people like a radio club, or an association.

Nomination forms are available on www.amateurradio.org.za or by sending
a mail request to . The closing date for
nominations has been extended till 5 October 2012.

NEW QST MANAGING EDITOR

The ARRL has announced that Book Editor Becky Schoenfeld, W1BXY, has
been promoted to QST Managing Editor. A Connecticut native, Schoenfeld
has more than two decades of publishing experience.

Prior to her employment at ARRL Headquarters, Schoenfeld served as
Senior Editor at Teaching Kindergarten through 8th grade magazine and
Senior Project Editor for textbook publisher Macmillan/McGraw-Hill. She
is also the founder of Amaranth magazine which is a highly successful
poetry journal.

W1BXY holds a Masters of Fine Arts from Emerson College and a Bachelor
of Arts from Fairfield University. Her Amateur Radio activities include
chasing grid squares in pursuit of her 6 metre VUCC award and DX
hunting on 10 metres.

Schoenfeld replaces the position formerly held by Joel Kleinman, N1BKE,
who died tragically in a house fire several weeks ago.

LOOKING AHEAD TO WRC-15

From an Amateur Radio perspective, the 2012 World Radio Communication
Conference (WRC-12) was very successful. According to IARU Secretary
Rod Stafford, W6ROD, the IARU Administrative Council will meet in the
next 45 days and will address the agenda items for the 2015 World Radio
Communication Conference with an eye to building the best strategy to
deal with those agenda items in a way that is most favourable to the
Amateur Radio Service.

WRC-15 Agenda Item 1.4 calls on the delegates "to consider possible new
allocation to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis with the band 5
250-5 450 kHz in accordance with Resolution 649 (WRC-12). "According to
Stafford, the IARU will be spending a lot of time and effort to garner
support and to ensure the passage of this Agenda Item.

Agenda Item 1.1 is "to consider additional spectrum allocations to the
mobile service on a primary basis and identification of additional
frequency bands for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) and
related regulatory provisions, to facilitate the development of
terrestrial mobile broadband applications, in accordance with
Resolution 233 (WRC-12)."

"With seemingly everyone around the world gaining some degree of
broadband access, the search for radio spectrum to satisfy the needs
for mobile connectivity will become even more intense as we draw closer
to WRC-15, Stafford explained. "National telecommunication authorities
around the world and the ITU are in search of spectrum to fill these
mobile connectivity requirements. As this agenda item develops, the
IARU will be there to maintain the Amateur Radio spectrum."

Other WRC-15 Agenda Items the IARU will be closely monitoring include
the following:

Agenda Item 1.6.1: "To consider possible additional primary allocations
to the fixed satellite service (Earth-to-space and space-to-Earth) of
250 MHz in the range between 10 GHz and 17 GHz in Region 1."

Agenda Item 1.10: "To consider spectrum requirements and possible
additional spectrum allocations for the mobile-satellite service in the
Earth-to-space and space-to-Earth directions, including the satellite
component for broadband applications, including International Mobile
Telecommunications (IMT), within the frequency range from 22 GHz to 26
GHz, in accordance with Resolution 234 (WRC-12)."

Agenda Item 1.18: "To consider a primary allocation to the
radiolocation service for automotive applications in the 77,5-78,0 GHz
frequency band in accordance with Resolution 654 (WRC-12)."

"A lot of radio amateurs are aware of the increasing use of amateur
spectrum by small satellites, mainly by universities," Stafford noted.
"It is becoming an increasingly difficult situation."

To accommodate the number of small, non-commercial satellites within
the amateur bands. These education-based satellites do not really fit
within the definition of the Amateur Radio Service, but have been
accommodated there. These small satellites are categorized as
nanosatellites (weighing between 1-10 kg) and pico satellites (weighing
less than 1 kg). The ITU is trying to deal with this issue in an
orderly manner and a 'preliminary' WRC-18 agenda item is to consider
whether these satellite operations can be accommodated in an already
crowded radio spectrum. As these issues develop, the IARU will keep its
Member-Societies, such as the SARL, aware of developments."

COMPETITION NEW2S

SARL 80 m CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP

From 17:30 to 18:30 UTC on Wednesday evening 26 September 2012, the
SSB contest will be on the air. The exchange is a RS report and a
serial number starting at 001. You can participate as a Single Operator
or Multi-operator station with activity on 3 600 - 3 650 kHz and 3 700
-3 775 kHz. Each QSO counts one point.

Each session is a contest in its own right, and log entries must be
submitted to within seven (7) days of the
contest, thus 23:59:59 CAT 3 October 2012.

CONGRATULATIONS BERNIE ZS4TX

Bernie van der Walt, ZS4TX, participated in the 2011 CQ WW DX CW
Contest on 28 MHz using high power and made 2 208 429 points. This
score ensured that Bernie was awarded the Single Operator, Single Band,
World 28 MHz trophy. Well done Bernie.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is at low
levels. Only a few sunspot regions are currently visible. Big new
Sunspot 1 575 will hopefully increase the solar activity levels in the
weeks to come.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected
effective sunspot number for the week will be around 62.

All the bands from 20 to 10 m will provide lots of DX fun with 15 m
providing the best openings with 20 m not far behind. 10 m openings
will be less frequent due to the lower solar activity.

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

DIARY OF EVENTS 24 September - That is tomorrow, Heritage Day Sprint
from 12:00 to 15:00 CAT. 26 September - SARL 80 m club championship
competition from 17:30 to 18:30 UTC. 29 September - Radio Technology in
Action Symposium in Cape Town. Pre-booking closes Wednesday evening. 29
September - Flea market of the West Rand Amateur Radio Club. 3 October
- Log sheets for the SARL 80 m club championship competition to be in
to . 5 October - Nominations for MTN sponsored
SAARDT awards to be in to . 9 October - Heritage
Day Sprint logs to be in to and a copy to
.

SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news items of
interest to radio amateurs and short-wave 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 17 760 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 17:30 UTC 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 Martin Schwella, ZS4MS, and edited George Honiball, ZS6NE.

Thank you for listening, 73.

/EX

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