SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 13 NOVEMBER 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
our 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.

We start the bulletin this morning with news of two silent keys.

It is with deep regret that we report that the key of Chris Nagel,
ZS6BGH, ex ZS6BGD and ZS3B, went silent on Sunday 6 November 2016.
Chris was well known for his travels around South Africa and Namibia
with his three-wheel vehicle or Tukkie under the call sign ZS3B
tricycle mobile.

We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

The key of Dawie Pansegrouw, ZS1PRF, ex ZS4DR, went silent of Sunday 6
November 2016.

We extend our sincere condolences to his wife Alethea, his son Didi,
ZS1DFP, family and friends.

PAUSE

IN THE NEWS TODAY:

SARL OFFICE ADMINISTRATOR RESIGNATION

WEB SITE TEAM LOOKING FOR BETA TESTERS

INTERNET CELEBRATES ITS 25TH ANNIVERSARY

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items

** The President and Council of the SARL hereby advise the members that
Vonnie Oelofse the SARL office administrator has due to personal
circumstances, tendered her resignation with immediate effect.

The SARL office at the NARC will consequently be closed for the next
few days and may operate on a part time basis until a replacement
administrator can be found. Geoff Levey, ZS6C, the Councillor
responsible for the NARC, will answer any urgent enquiries.

The SARL has a vacancy for an office administrator with immediate
effect. If you are interested in applying for this post, then please
contact Geoff Levy, ZS6C, on 082 546 5546 or via e-mail
for a job description and further details.

** The Web Site Team is looking for Beta Testers of the new
software/site that was setup as a Trial/Test.

All positive comments for this site can be made on the site itself.

Advanced features has been added for example the illusive thumbs up
button and direct photo upload, not mentioning the New improved Swop
Shop but to name a few.

Registration is automated. If unsure what to do, please look in the Q &
A section for the correct information.

Please do not use the SARL Forum for the discussion about the Beta Test
Site should there be one, as it is only a test site and we need all
correspondence in one central place and prefer to have it on the New
Test Site.

On confirmation that you are a SARL member, you will be "upgraded" to
the SARL Member group and all additional features will become live.

Your test begins he www.sarl.hamradio.org.za/

As this is a new site being tested, you will be required to register to
test this site as explained in the Q & A section on the site. It has
nothing to do with the current SARL FORUM /Web Site.

** 12 November 2016 is the 25th anniversary of the first South African
Internet networking system. In 1988, Mike Lawrie led the Rhodes
University team that established the very first South African Internet
networking system. The following year saw Rhodes use e-mail for the
first time.

South Africa has solid Internet foundations built by visionary South
Africans who saw the potential of a new technology that has today
flourished and built many local centres of Internet excellence such as
ZACR which is tasked with administering second-level domains within the
greater ZA.

** We have seen how the Maximum Usable Frequency no longer reaches the
lower VHF frequencies, but hovers only in the HF spectrum during the
mimimum Solar Cycle. According to the ARRL, the Sun's magnetic field is
weakening, probably to the lowest levels in our lifetimes, and with a
weak solar magnetic field, more galactic cosmic rays will be able to
get into Earth's atmosphere. We are now seeing unprecedented high
neutron counts (neutrons are one of the byproducts of cosmic rays).
Since galactic cosmic rays are mostly very energetic protons, they can
get down to low atmospheric altitudes, causing collisional ionization
in the D region and lower E region. A cursory estimate using cosmic ray
ionization rates confirms greater ionization in the lower atmosphere,
and 160 meters is not too tolerant of more absorption. The Solar
mimimum in the 2020's may be even too deep for 160 metres!

** Each year the Eastern Cape branch of the Mountain Club of South
Africa's Search and Rescue (S&R) division have mountain rescue
exercises and now, as a matter of course, Hamnet Eastern Cape get
invited to tag along and play radio.

The weekend of 5th and 6th November 2016 was the second exercise in the
current format which involves the South African Air force with their BK
helicopters, EMS, and of course, Hamnet Eastern Cape.

Search teams comprising MCSA S&R members and medics were deployed to
various remote parts of the Groendal nature reserve. Most of the
exercise involved trooping teams (or sticks in S&R lingo) around the
mountainous area of Groendal outside Uitenhage. Teams were required to
board the helicopter, practice "spotting" while in flight, disembark
from the helicopter, establish their coordinates, perform some small
task and then select a new landing zone for the helicopter when they
get collected, and finally to navigate the pilot in to their location.
More advanced training was done on the Sunday and this included
hoisting patients and other advanced techniques.

From a radio perspective, the Hamnet team deployed mobile repeaters to
cover the terrain, linking the teams on the ground with the Joint
Operations Centre (JOC). The repeaters gave generous VHF coverage to
the sticks who enjoyed very good communications with the JOC and other
teams.

One of our Hammies - Graydon Higgs (ZU2GH) was with the Hamnet Eastern
Cape team and assisted in deploying the Hamnet repeater and manned the
digital gateway which provided access to Whatsapp, SMS, Internet, and
phone calls to the JOC.

Basically, from a high point (where the repeater was placed) Graydon
enjoyed excellent radio coms. We located the repeater on a high point
with known 3G coverage. This meant the JOC had an internet connection
and phone capabilities at their disposal. This proved valuable as the
Air Force operations centre was informed of the activity and was even
needed to resolve an issue with the flying time of one of the aircraft.

The JOC was run with the help of the following radio hams: Gert ZS2GS,
Colin ZR2CRS, Mandy ZS2AV and Andrew ZS2G. Hamnet Eastern Cape can be
proud of the way they performed.

Once again, Andrew Gray and his team showed what can be done. Special
thanks to Glen ZS2GV and Colin ZR2CRS for assisting the Hamnet Eastern
Cape team.

I believe the exercise was hugely beneficial and a big "Well done!" to
all involved. I believe we all enjoyed it and added value to the
exercise.

** The Westrand Amateur radio club is hosting its next flea market at
12:00 on Saturday 26 November 2016 at their clubhouse in Kroton street,
Weltevredenpark, Roodepoort. Everybody is welcome. For more information
contact Geoff ZS6C on 082 546 5546.

** On the 19th November the Overberg Amateur Radio Club will be having
their end of the year function at Stanford. This is a bring and braai
and salads and snacks will be available for all. Visitors are welcome.
Bring a tent and enjoy the weekend with us. For further details,
contact André, ZS1AZ, on 0727291680 or

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected
to remain at very low levels. No major solar flaring is expected.

If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected
effective sunspot number for the week will be around 17.

The 15 to 20m bands will provide lots of DX fun. There is a chance of
10m openings on north-south sunlit paths.

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

** Let's look at some upcoming events:

13 November - SARL Youth Net 19 November - Antique Wireless Association
AGM & Swopmeet 26 November - Westrand Flea Market 26 - 27 November - CQ
WW DX CW Contest 3 - 4 December - UK/EI DX SSB Contest 4 December -
SARL Digital Contest 10 - 11 December - ARRL 10m Contest 11 December -
SARL Youth Net

** To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item: The
President and Council of the SARL hereby advise the members that Vonnie
Oelofse the SARL office administrator has due to personal
circumstances, tendered her resignation with immediate effect.

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.

You are welcome to 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 17 760 kHz AM.
There is also a pod cast 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 Emile Venter, ZS6V,
and read by ..............

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

/EX

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