SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 8 JANUARY 2017

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

You can tune in to the South African Radio League news bulletin on
Sunday mornings at 08:15 Central African Time in Afrikaans and at 08:30
Central African Time in English on HF and on many VHF and UHF repeaters
around the country. Echolink listeners can connect to ZS0JPL for a
relay. A podcast is available from the League's web site.

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

In the news today,

A CALL FOR MOTIONS FOR THE 2017 AGM AND COUNCIL NOMINATIONS

RADIO AMATEUR EXAMINATION DETAILS FOR 2017

and

THE PEARS NATIONAL VHF AND UHF CONTEST

Stay tuned for more on these and other interesting news items.

** In terms of Rule 11.3 of the Constitution and Rules of the League, a
call is made to members to submit motions to be discussed at the 2017
Annual General Meeting. Motions should be clear, concise, include a
motivation and require a proposer and a seconder.

In terms of Rule 16.9 of the Constitution and Rules of the League, a
call is made to members for nominations to serve on the Council of the
League. Five of the present Councillors will retire at the 2017 AGM,
but can be re-elected if nominated and seconded. The names of the five
Councillors retiring will be made known following the Council meeting
on 17 January. The requirements are a nomination form signed either by
10 seconders who are all members of the League or by a Club of which at
least 10 members are also members of the League.

The closing date for nominations and submission of motions is on or
before Tuesday 31 January 2017 and must be sent to the League Secretary
at or by fax to 086 552 8487. For more
information, please refer to the League Constitution and Rules, which
is available on www.sarl.org.za.

** Members and Clubs are invited to submit nominations for the
following South African Radio League awards. Send your nominations with
a motivation to the League Secretary at on or
before Tuesday 31 January 2017.

The awards are Honorary Life Membership; the Willie Wilson Gold Badge;
the Jack Twine Award; the Arthur Hemsley 2 metre Trophy; the Barney
Joel Trophy; the Icom Excellence Award; the Joseph White Plaque; the
Bert Buckley Six Metre Trophy; the Radio ZS Four Metre Floating Trophy;
the SAATI Award and the Tinus Lange 7066 Technical Excellence Award.
The relevant information about each award can be found in the SARL
Communication e-mail dated 11 December 2016 sent to all members.

** It is that time of year again when Clubs get ready to run RAE
courses. This year sees a major change in the day of the examination.
In the past, the exam was always written on Thursday evenings, but this
year the RAE will be written on Saturday mornings starting from 10:00
to 13:00 Central African Time. This should make it easier for the
candidates who cannot always make the exam, due to pressure of work.
The RAE dates for 2017 are as follows:

First semester 21 January 2017 - RAE registration process opens 15
April 2017 - RAE registration closes 20 May 2017 - RAE examination
(Saturday morning)

Second Semester 14 July 2017 - RAE registration process opens 16
September 2017 - RAE registration closes 21 October 2017 - RAE
examination (Saturday morning)

An e-mail has been sent to the current list of Chief Invigilators of
the respective Clubs, requesting them to update all their details and
re-register before 20 January. Please note - the relevant Clubs'
contact details and the exam centre locations are extremely important.
This information is required before the RAE registration process can be
opened. The link to the registration page is
http://www.sarl.org.za/Web3/RAE/Exam...istration.aspx.

All HF Assessors are also required to update their details by
re-registering at the following link -
http://www.sarl.org.za/Web3/RAE/HFAs...istration.aspx.

Candidates must register online and Clubs are requested to hand out the
RAE Registration information sheet to all candidates. This can be
downloaded at
http://www.sarl.org.za/Web3/Document...tion_Sheet.pdf

Please do not hesitate to contact the SARL RAE Manager on the following
e-mail should you require further information. All this
information was sent to affiliated Clubs on Tuesday 3 January by
e-mail.

** RAE Bursaries for under 26 Year old students. The South African
Amateur Radio Development Trust offers two bursary of R1 000 each for
the May Radio Amateur Examination. The Tony Reumerman bursary programme
awards four bursaries annually for students who are under 26 years old
and are planning to write the Class A examination. Two bursaries are
available for the May exam and two for the October exam. For more
details and the application form, visit www.amateurradio.org.za.

** Join the SDR Conversation. AMSAT SA will resume its regular SDR
conversation on Wednesday 11 January 2017. The concept is to share
ideas and experiences on Software Defined Radio and the conversation
will take place via a Skype call starting at 20:30. To participate it
is essential that the participant runs the latest version of Skype. To
book your participation, send an e-mail to with
your Skype name and mobile phone number by 10 January. Deon Coetzee,
ZR1DE, moderates the discussion.

You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.
Did you tell anyone about amateur radio this week?

** The annual PEARS National VHF and UHF contest will take place over
the weekend of 20 to 22 January 2017 and is open to all licensed
amateurs in the RSA and the neighbouring states. The aim of a VHF and
UHF contest is to stimulate activity on these bands, make many long
distance contacts possible, establish new records, encourage the
improvement of VHF and UHF equipment and advance amateur radio.

This is a 44-hour dual contest for analogue and digital modes, which is
divided into 2 sessions that will spread out activity over the contest
period and reflect changes of propagation. So watch out for Tropo
Ducting or Meteor Scatter in the early mornings or at night on 50 and
144 MHz, while in the daytime look out for Rover stations, Aircraft
scatter and possibly Sporadic-E. This is also a wonderful camping
period with lots of fun for field stations. Amateurs are requested to
participate in both the contests and keep the bands alive.

The first 22-hour session of the VHF and UHF contest starts at 16:00
UTC on Friday 20 January and closes at 14:00 UTC on Saturday afternoon
21 January. The second 22-hour session commences immediately after
14:00 UTC on Saturday and ends at 12:00 UTC on Sunday 22 January 2017.
Get all the details in the 2017 Blue Book, available from
www.sarl.org.za or on page 31 of the January 2017 issue of Radio ZS.

** The Editor of Radio ZS requests members to assist him in awarding
two of the Radio ZS awards for the 12 issues of the 2016 series of the
magazine. The first is the Gary Immelman RA Heritage Award Floating
Trophy for the best article of a historic nature describing an event
that occurred more than five years previously or an interesting
personality that has played an important part in the development of
Amateur Radio in years gone by. The second is the JJ Pienaar Trophy for
the best article published in Radio ZS during 2016.

E-mail your suggestions as to who would be worthy recipients to
by Tuesday 31 January 2017.

** Turn your laptop into a 24 MHz to 1,7 GHz receiver. AMSAT SA is
holding a half-day SDR Workshop in association with the South African
Radio League at the NARC on 18 February 2017. This is a hands-on
workshop where participants will install a VHF/UHF RTL dongle and
programme it to become a VHF/UHF receiver covering 24 MHz to 1,7 GHz.
Anton Janovsky, ZR6AIC, and Cor Rademeyer, ZS6CR, will present the
Workshop. The Workshop fee includes the RTL dongle and a memory stick
with all the required software as well as light refreshments. Register
before 11 February 2017, all the details and registration form are
available on www.amsatsa.org.za. Book early to avoid disappointment.

** The 2017 AMSAT SA Space Conference will be held on Saturday 20 May
2017 in Pretoria. This is the first call for paper proposals. The theme
of the conference is "Conquering Space as an educational pastime."
Proposals for papers should include a brief synopsis of the proposed
paper. The closing date for proposals is 31 January 2017. Authors will
be notified of acceptance of their paper by 15 February 2017. More
details on www.amsatsa.org.za

** There were strong sporadic-e openings on New Year's Day. Andrew
Gray, ZS2G, at Port Elizabeth was the first to report the Sporadic-E
opening on 1 January 2017 when he heard the ZS6TWB beacon on 50,044 MHz
CW from Polokwane around 11:59 CAT.

Mike Kellett, ZS1TAF at Cape Town heard the ZS6TWB beacon for about 2
hours and it was first audible from about 12:30 CAT, while the ZS6JON
beacon on 50,050 MHz CW was heard for almost an hour. During this
period, Mike worked Servaas, ZS6SER, at Louis Trichardt, Willem,
ZS6WAB, in Polokwane and Kenneth, ZS6KN, in Onderstepoort, on 50,200
MHz SSB at S9.

Pieter Jacobs, V51PJ, at Rosh Pinah reported that he first heard about
an Es warning when the 11 metre band was open. He listened on 50,200
MHz and heard CW, voice and meteor pings with his beam in the direction
of Polokwane. He changed frequency to 50,280 MHz and received a 57
MSK441 signal non-stop from Brad, ZS5BG, who was +13 dB on the screen.
He changed to JT65a and hooked up with Brad in Pinetown, Hugo, ZS5HV,
at Scottburgh and Lee, ZS5LEE, in Durban. It was interesting that
Pieter was beaming NNE when he first heard Brad, but the Es cloud must
have moved when they started operating on JT65a as they had to beam at
each other. Bernie, ZS4TX, in Bloemfontein could not hear the Es
signals, only meteor pings and thought that the skip distance was
between 1 200 and 1 600 km at the time.

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected
to be at low levels. There are currently no sunspots visible. 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
less than 5. The 15 to 30 m bands will provide lots of DX fun. Please
visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

Now for the diary of events

11 January - the SDR Conversation 12 January - the NARC opens for
business 20 January - RAE Invigilators and Venues to be re-registered
21 January - May RAE registration process opens 20 to 22 January - the
PEARS National VHF/UHF Contest 31 January - closing date for AGM
motions, Council nominations, SARL Awards and Radio ZS awards; the
closing date for proposals for papers for the AMSAT SA Conference 11
February - closing date for the SDR Workshop registration 18 February -
the SDR Workshop at the NARC

To end this bulletin, a recap of our main news item this morning:

In terms of Rule 11.3 of the Constitution and Rules of the League, a
call is made to members to submit motions to be discussed at the 2017
Annual General Meeting. Motions should be clear, concise, include a
motivation and require a proposer and a seconder.

In terms of Rule 16.9 of the Constitution and Rules of the League, a
call is made to members for nominations to serve on the Council of the
League. Five of the present Councillors will retire at the 2017 AGM,
and can be re-elected if nominated and seconded.

** 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 podcast available from Dick Stratford, ZS6RO. A
rebroadcast can be heard on Monday evenings at 18:30 Central African
Time on 4 895 kHz AM.

We welcome your signal reports, comments and suggestions; 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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS,
edited by Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, and read by ...................

73 and 88, thank you for listening

/EX

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