SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 28 AUGUST 2016

Good morning and welcome to the weekly news bulletin of the South
African Radio League read by ................ [your name, call sign and
QTH]

You may tune in to the South African Radio League news bulletin on
Sunday mornings, at 08:15 Local Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30 Local
Time in English, on HF as well as on many VHF and UHF repeaters around
the country. Echolink listeners may connect to ZS0JPL for a relay.

This audio bulletin may be downloaded from the League website at
www.sarl.org.za where you will find this as well as previous bulletins
in text format under the news link on the left-hand side of the web
page. While you are there, you may sign up to receive future bulletins
by e-mail.

IN THE NEWS TODAY

NEXT STEP FOR SARL ICASA MOU

UPCOMING CONTESTS

EASTERN CAPE HAMMIES ADVENTURE

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items

*** Current cooperation between the SARL and ICASA has far outstripped
the original MOU between the two organisations and was brought
up-to-date last year. However due to the restructuring of ICASA and
various delays in amending the ICASA delegation of authority, the
signing of the MOU was delayed. While the new MOU was agreed between
the SARL and the ICASA licensing structure it had to go through a new
review process including various departments. This process is now at
the point where the MOU is on the agenda of the next ICASA Operations
Committee. After approval it will then be submitted to the ICASA
Council for final approval and signature.

In a parallel process the SARL recommendation for a 5 MHz allocation
presented to ICASA earlier this year, has now received approval from
the frequency spectrum department and a document is in preparation for
submission to the Operating Committee. The SARL proposal seeks the
continued use of 5290 kHz for the WSPR propagation experiment and a
secondary allocation of 100 kHz range which includes the WRC agreed
range of 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz and that the power allowed be 26 dBW. The
SARL proposed 5350 - 5450 kHz which was the IARU proposal to WRC15. At
WRC15 South Africa and members countries of the African
Telecommunications Union supported the proposal. The Russian block
opposed it. A compromise was reached to allocate 5351.5 - 5366.5 kHz.
However many countries, including the Netherlands went ahead and gave
their radio amateurs access to the proposed 100 kHz.

The South African process is very involved and may well have to include
a public consultation process.

*** The Eastern Cape Hammies club, with the help of PEARS members, set
up a station at the Donkin Reserve in Port Elizabeth for the
International Lighthouse weekend.

Sunday 21 August saw the local hams coming out of the woodwork to see
the Hammies in action at the Donkin Reserve (lighthouse reference
ZA0023) A number of contacts were made - including some DX stations and
a total of 9 lighthouses.

A firm favourite among the kids was "Uncle Al's kombi". Those who know
Al Akers ZS2U may have seen pictures of the radio kombi. Al has kitted
out his Kombi as a camper and has radios and antennas all over the
place. For the first few hours, the Hammies operated Al's radio inside
the kombi. Later on as the bands changed they moved outside to Andrew
Gray's 20m station. Andre ZS2ZA was also there with his 2m station
chatting up a storm.

From the Hammies, ZS2ZU, a big thank you to Al Akers ZS2U, Andrew Gray
ZS2G, and Andre Potgieter ZS2ZA for helping us put something together!

While Hammies manned the Donkin Reserve on Sunday, this was not the
only action for the weekend! Other PEARS members, notably Bill Hodges
ZS2ABZ (who manned the Cape Recife lighthouse on Saturday), Andre
Potgieter ZS2ZA, and Theunis Potgieter ZS2EC were also very involved
with the Lighthouse weekend. A large number of PEARS members were also
involved with the second of the Trans Baviaans mountain bike weekends.

Pictures of the event, the Hammies, and Al's radio-mobile are available
on the Pears Facebook page.

** The SARL HF CW Contest is on the air this afternoon from 13:00 to
16:30 UTC with activity on 14 000 to 14 060 kHz, 7 000 to 7 040 kHz and
3 510 to 3 560 kHz. The exchange is a RST report and a consecutive
serial number starting at 001. CW contacts count 2 points. Get all the
rules in the 2016 Blue Book. Submit your log in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS
Excel format and labelled "your-call-sign HF CW" by the 4 September
2016, by e-mail to .

** The closing date for logs for the SARL HF Digital Contest is
midnight tonight 28 August. To date only four logs have been received.
Send your log to

** In September, you can participate in the SARL National Field Day on
the weekend of the 10 and 11 September, the SARL VHF/UHF Contest and
the All Africa All Mode Contest on the weekend of the 17 and 18
September. Find the rules for these three contests in the 2016 Blue
Book.

*** The September 2016 issue of Radio ZS will be available for download
from the League's website on Tuesday 30 August 2016. In this issue you
can read about the YOTA 2016 Sumner camp in Austria. Brian, G0GSF,
tells you more about the NVIS antenna and Kevin, ZS6KMD, has a mini
oscilloscope project for you. Pythagoras helped Dennis, ZS4BS, build a
Delta Loop antenna and Lee, ZS5LEE, has compiled a comprehensive chart
in colour of EME firsts made by ZS amateurs. This and more in the
September issue.

You are tuned to a news bulletin of the South African Radio league read
by . . . (Name and callsign please)

*** The SARL received an application for a listener's licence from Nico
Obermeyer, ZSL1167. Any objections against Nico's application must
reach the League secretary on or before Wednesday the 31st of August
2016. Send your objections via email to

There are total of 1494 members who renewed their membership with the
SARL which includes the May RAE candidates. Have you renewed your
membership yet? If not now is a good time to do so. By the end of
August you will be removed as member of the SARL if you failed to renew
your membership. There are 39 affiliated clubs.

*** PEARS kept the ham flag flying by once again providing emergency
and logistical communications to the Trans Baviaans Mountain Bike race.
The event which takes place over two consecutive weekends covers some
of the best 4x4 country in the Eastern Cape. The terrain is certainly
not radio friendly, but that is part of the attraction!

A few strategically placed temporary repeaters and some cross-banding
and we had comms through the entire kloof!

PEARS members were responsible not only for providing emergency
communication, but also in relaying team numbers and other logistical
information to the race organisers. Tony Allen ZR2TX once again took
the bull by the horns and ran the main operations centre, coordinating
all the medics, lead/sweep vehicles, and the various checkpoints.

A new item this year was the testing of the APRS system for sending
team numbers. Various solutions were deployed and tested at Check
points 2, 3, and 4. Team numbers were captured on laptops and mobile
devices over locally deployed wireless networks and then sent by radio
to the digipeater network deployed for this purpose. The system still
needs some fine tuning, but is definitely a solution worth perfecting.
A full debriefing on the system - and other issues from the event -
will be handled at a special meeting to be held at 18:00 on 20
September - just before the next club meeting.

Many photos of the event have been uploaded to the PEARS facebook page.
Logon to www.facebook.com and search for Port Elizabeth Amateur Radio
Society. While you are there you can like the page too and stay up to
date with what PEARS is up to!

** Provisional Results of the SARL YL Sprint. The Contest committee
received eight logs and one check log for the SARL YL Sprint. Six
ladies and three men submitted logs.

1st Colette Rundle, ZS2CR, 190 points 2nd Heather Holland, ZS5YH, 124
points 3rd Judy Pretorius, ZS6JDY, 108 points

** Provisional Results of the SARL HF Phone Contest. The Contest
Committee received 15 logs for the SARL HF Phone Contest.

1st Jan Botha, ZS4JAN, 200 points 2nd Barry Nugent, ZS2NF, 128 points
3rd Theo Bresler, ZS6TVB, 120 points

The full results appear in HF Happenings 718, which is available on the
League's web site.

*** The West Rand Amateur radio Club is hosting its next flea market at
12:00 on Saturday 03 September 2016 at their clubhouse in Kroton
Street, Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. For more
information contact Geoff ZS6C 082 546 5546.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to
remain at low levels. The visible sunspots do not pose a threat for
solar flares.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected
effective sunspot number for the week will be around 11.

The 15 to 20 metre bands will provide lots of DX fun.

Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further
information.

And that brings us to the end of this bulletin

*** Clubs and individuals are invited to submit news items of interest
to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners, if possible, in both English
and Afrikaans, by following the news inbox link on the South African
Radio League web page. News items for inclusion in the bulletin should
reach the news team no later than the Thursday preceding the bulletin
date.

Join us every Sunday morning for the weekly amateur radio magazine
programme 'Amateur Radio Today' at 10:00 Central African Time. The
programme can be heard on VHF and UHF repeaters countrywide and on 7
082 kHz lower side-band and on 7 205 kHz and 17 660 kHz AM. There is
also a podcast available from Dick Stratford, ZS6RO. A rebroadcast can
be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African Time on 3 230 kHz
AM.

We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; please send
these by e-mail to . Sentech sponsors the radio
transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

You have listened to a news bulletin compiled by Dawie Conradie,
ZR6DHC, edited by Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, and read by ..............

From the news team, best wishes for the week ahead. /EX

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