SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 26 MARCH 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 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. A
podcast is available from the League's web site.

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 2 silent keys.

The key of Ken Victor, ZS2OC, went silent in the early hours of Monday
20 March 2017. Ken got his amateur licence in the early 1950's and has
been a very active and much liked radio amateur ever since. Ken's voice
will be missed on the air - especially on the Monday night 4 m net and
the Wednesday night 6 m net - both of which he participated in for many
years until recent health issues prevented him from doing so.

Danie Brynard, ZS6AWK, lost his long battle against cancer on Monday,
20 March. He was an excellent CW operator, owned a micro light aircraft
and loved adventure touring with his multipurpose motor bike. He found
it very exciting to operate his homebrew KX3 transceiver from these
remote locations. He worked as an RF engineer at a major defence
contractor. Danie loved microcontrollers and did many projects with
PICs and Arduinos. He was especially renowned for his willingness to
share his experience and knowledge with anybody, especially the younger
persons. His pleasant personality will be sorely missed by his many
friends.

We extend our sincere condolences to family and friends.

PAUSE

In the news, today:

THE SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NATIONAL CONVENTION ON SATURDAY 6 MAY

THE RADAR CHALLENGE ON SATURDAY 1 APRIL

and

VHF BEGINNERS SHOULD START EXPERIMENTING ON 144 AND 50 MHz BANDS

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

** The South African Radio League National Convention which includes
the Annual General Meeting and the Awards Dinner takes place at
Bergvallei in Muldersdrift just north of Johannesburg on Saturday 6 May
2017. The event is being hosted by the West Rand Amateur Radio Club.

If you are attending the AGM and Awards Dinner it is essential that you
book no later than Wednesday 19 April to secure your place. The cost of
the dinner is R200 per head for SARL members and R300 per head for
non-members. If you are attending the AGM and wish to enjoy lunch
provided then you to let us know by 19 April so that we can advise the
caterers. Lunch costs R65 per head.

The guest speaker at the Awards Dinner is Mark Comninos, co-founder of
Marcom Aeronautics and Space, Pty Ltd. Their mission is the
development, testing and operation of a family of commercial satellite
launch vehicles around common core technologies. Mark's address will
inspire and motivate you.

To secure your place, please e-mail or call Kelley at
the SARL office on 011 675 2393 or Geoff Levey, ZS6C, on 082 546 5546.
Please note that your reservation is not effective until you have made
payment in full.

Be advised that the official notice and documentation for the AGM will
be sent out by Thursday 6 April 2017, so please watch out for it. If
you cannot attend yourself, please make sure that you appoint a proxy
whom you trust to vote as you would.

Don't delay - book your place today!

** Just a few days remain before voting for the South African Radio
League Amateur Radio Hall of Fame ends on Friday 31 March 2017. The
Hall of Fame preserves the memory of individuals who have made
significant contributions to amateur radio in South Africa. The first
group of members was inducted during 2016. Another group of up to ten
will be inducted at the SARL Awards Dinner in May. From next year, a
maximum of only two new members will be inducted annually.

Essays outlining the contributions of the 21 nominees can be found on
the Hall of Fame page, accessible through a link on the SARL Web site
front page. About 400 votes have been received from League members.
Reading the nominations is well worth your while, as the nominees have
shaped our hobby. They include historical stalwarts like Dixon Bennett
and Koos and Annie van der Merwe, as well as modern-day contributors to
our hobby.

Vote today!

** Book now for a workshop on the rising RF noise floor. The South
African Radio League is convening a Saturday morning workshop to
discuss the rising RF noise floor and to develop a coordinated
programme and form a study group with the objective of establishing a
monitoring system to assemble more information while also considering
mitigation methods to deal with manmade noise affecting amateur radio
frequencies.

This will be an open meeting and everyone who has an interest in the
subject is invited to attend. It will be held on Saturday 22 April from
09:30 to 12:30 at the NARC. If you have a special interest, expertise
or experience in this field please share this at the workshop. For more
details please email with your contact details.
Please register now. The form is available for download on
www.sarl.org.za.

** The RaDAR "Challenge" is a unique event aimed at promoting the use
of Rapidly Deployable Amateur Radio stations. Categories may be changed
at any time during the challenge. The points system is so structured as
to encourage portable RaDAR operations especially moveable RaDAR
stations. RaDAR operators are encouraged to be self-sufficient during
each challenge, with not only power supply and communications equipment
but food, water, protective clothing and shelter, not forgetting the
first aid kit.

The first RaDAR Challenge for 2017 takes place on Saturday 1 April from
00:00 to 23:59 UTC, but each radio amateur can decide his or her
maximum, single period, four-hour activity. All amateur bands are
allowed including cross band contacts via amateur radio satellites.
Modes - CW, SSB, AM, FM or any legal digital mode. The exchange is your
call sign, your name, a RS or RST report, your QTH and grid locator.

Information about the scoring, multipliers, bonus points and log sheets
can be found on page 26 of the 2017 Blue Book. Are you going to take up
the challenge?

You are listening to a news bulletin of the South African Radio League.

** SANSA CEO to deliver keynote at AMSAT SA space symposium. The newly
appointed CEO of the South African National Space Agency (SANSA), Dr
Val Munsami, will deliver the opening keynote address at the AMSAT SA
2017 Space Symposium on Saturday 27 May 2017 at the Innovation Hub in
Pretoria. His keynote is entitled: "Reinvigorating South Africa's
Satellite Capabilities".

The symposium features a diversity of presentations including: Get
ready for amateur radio's first geostationary satellite to be launched
in the third quarter of this year, Software Defined Radio on Raspberry
as an entry level system and many more. Also learn about modulation
techniques and applications for Information transfer. For more details
and an early bird booking form, visit www.amsatsa.org.za. This is the
symposium of the year you do not want to miss.

** The South African Radio League received applications for membership
from the following radio amateurs.

Werner Muller, V51JP Oleg Neruchev, ZS1OIN Leslie McGregor, ZS2CD Chris
Smit, ZS6FCS David Botha, ZS6O

Any objections to these membership applications must reach the League
Secretary before Wednesday 29 March 2017. Please send your objections
to

** Beginners on VHF should be encouraged to start on 144 and 50 MHz (2
and 6 metre) bands. The 144 MHz band is the best Tropo band on VHF or
above as the cut-off frequency of the Tropo duct rarely extends down to
50 MHz. It produces strong signals over 400 km or longer via Tropo
Enhancement and up to 5 000 km on Tropo Ducting across the sea.

The Magic Band, 50 MHz, excels on most other propagation modes and
produces extremely strong signals on Meteor Scatter, Sporadic-E, TEP,
worldwide DX via F2 when the sunspot number is high, plus another seven
propagation modes including SSSP and EME (except Satellite). You will
find these two bands very exciting, and as you increase the gain of
your horizontal Yagi so you will increase the distances and the number
of VHF stations worked.

** The SA Armour Museum will be participating in the 2017 Stars of
Sandstone event on the Sandstone Estate just north of Ficksburg. The
Museum call sign, ZS4AFV, will be on the air from Thursday 30 March
until Sunday 9 April and operated by Dennis, ZS4BS, when he is not
involved with the museum vehicles. Activity will be on HF using phone
and some digital modes. Visiting radio amateurs can bring along their
morse keys. QSL via the bureau and ZS4BS.

** Thursday 6 April sees the running of the first leg of the SARL 80
metre QSO Party. This popular phone contest starts at 17:00 and ends at
20:00 UTC.

The Autumn QRP Contest is on the air from 12:00 to 15:00 UTC on
Saturday 8 April with phone and CW activity on 40 metres for the first
hour and then on all HF contest bands for the next two hours.

Get all the information in the 2017 Blue Book.

** Monday 27 March is the closing date for your article for the April
issue of Radio ZS. Send it to

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected
to be at very low levels. Only a single sunspot is visible with no
threat of major storming. If you want to do your own frequency
predictions, the expected effective sunspot number for the week will be
around one. The 15 to 30m bands will provide lots of DX fun. With the
equinox here, the 10m band may also hold some surprises on sunlit
paths. Please visit the website spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further
information.

** Amateur Radio Today Monday Frequency to change. From Monday 27 March
the 16:30 UTC transmission frequency will change to 3 230 kHz.
Reception reports are invited. Please send to .
Amateur Radio Today frequencies will thus be as follows - Sundays 10:00
CAT 7 205, 7 082 kHz and 17 760 kHz. Mondays at 18:30 CAT 3 230 kHz.

A diary of some upcoming events:

27 March - closing date for Radio ZS articles 31 March - closing date
for SARL Hall of Fame voting 30 March to 9 April - ZS4AFV for the Stars
of Sandstone 1 April - the RaDAR Challenge 6 April - SARL 80 m QSO
Party 8 April - Autumn QRP Sprint 15 April - closing date for May RAE
registration 18 April - World Amateur Radio Day 22 April -SDR Workshop
in the Cape and SARL Noise Floor Workshop at the NARC 6 May - The South
African Radio League National Convention

** To conclude our bulletin a quick overview of our main news item

The South African Radio League National Convention which includes the
Annual General Meeting and the Awards Dinner takes place at Bergvallei
in Muldersdrift just north of Johannesburg on Saturday 6 May 2017. The
event is being hosted by the West Rand Amateur Radio Club.

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 with a change in frequency from Monday 27 March 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 Andy Cairns, ZS6ADY,
edited by Dick Stratford, ZS6RO, and read by ..............

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

/EX

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