SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS FOR SUNDAY 17 JUNE 2018

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 Central African Time in Afrikaans and at
08:30 Central African Time in English, on HF as well as on many VHF and
UHF repeaters around the country. Echolink listeners may connect to
ZS6JPL for a relay. A podcast is available from the League's web site.

Audio and text bulletins may be downloaded from the League website at
www.sarl.org.za where you can also sign up to receive future bulletins
by e-mail.

We begin the bulletin this morning with news of a silent key.

It is with deep regret that it must be announced that the key of Garth
Beresford, ZS6BER, went silent in December 2017.

We extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends.

PAUSE

In the news, today:

THE SARL TOP BAND QSO PARTY

THE ZS SOTA WEEKEND

and

BEWARE OF SCAMMERS ON THE SARL SWAP SHOP

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

The SARL News team wishes all Fathers a Happy Father's Day! It is also
World QRP Day so switch off the amplifier, turn down the power on your
rig and try QRP power. How many kilometres per watt can you achieve.
You will be amazed at what you can achieve with QRP.

THE SARL TOP BAND QSO PARTY

The SARL Top Band QSO Party is a fun activity to promote contacts on
160 metres between radio amateurs in Southern African countries and to
encourage radio amateurs to apply for the South African Radio League
Top Band Award and it takes place from 00:00 UTC on Thursday 21 June to
00:00 UTC on Monday 25 June 2018. The QSO Party is open to all licensed
amateurs that have access to the 160-metre band.

Activity takes place on CW between 1 810 and 1 838 kHz and on phone
between 1 840 and 2 000 kHz. The exchange is a RS or RST report and
your provincial or country abbreviation. Each station can be worked
once per mode i.e. once on Phone and again with CW and each contact
will count three (3) points. Each South African call area and each DXCC
country worked will be awarded with five (5) additional bonus points.

Logs in ADIF, Cabrillo or MS Excel format with a summary sheet labelled
"my call sign Top Band," must be submitted by 2 July 2018 by e-mail to
. Refer to General Rules 3.6 and 5.1 to 5.6 for
detail about logs and summary sheets.

THE ZS SOTA WEEKEND

Lucas Swart, ZS6ACT, has made arrangements that the SOTA team of Sid,
ZS5AYC and Adele, ZS5APT Tyler and Lucas, ZS6ACT and Magda ZS6MMS Swart
will be activating two summits in the Sani Pass area over the weekend
of 28 June to 1 July. The two 10 point summits are ZS/KN-010, Hodson's
Peak South at 3 256 m and ZS/KN-011, Hodson's Peak North at 3 251 m,
both are in Grid Locator KG40PJ. Chasers are needed, those that do not
feel like going out in the cold, can chase from their shacks!

The team say it would be amazing if we made this a South African SOTA
weekend with possible Summit to Summit (S2S) contacts. Maybe even S2S
with other SOTA associations!

If anyone wants to join the team in Lesotho, you are more than welcome.
The teams could be split and have S2S QSOs between the Hodson's peaks.
You need to have a valid passport and arrange for accommodation at the
Sani Backpackers Lodge, there is a restaurant at the top of Sani Pass
and the highest Pub in Africa - reasonably expensive. The team will be
self-catering, the restaurant does however make a delicious soup that
is served with Basotho bread and butter. Be prepared for snow!

The team plan on activating both summits on Saturday 30 June, final
arrangements of the exact times and frequencies will be sent later. We
will arrive at the top of Sani Pass on Friday 29 June to acclimatize!
If you cannot join us, what about activating a SOTA in your area? Let
us have fun and play radio, either by participating in SOTA, Parks on
the Air (ZS Fauna and Flora) or RaDAR.

THE REVERSE BEACON NETWORK AND FT8

A few weeks ago, several prolific Reverse Beacon Network (RBN) nodes
began spotting FT8 signals, using the combination of WSJT-X and an
unreleased Aggregator Version 5. The purpose of this limited Alpha test
was to get a feel for the load and other implications of carrying FT8
spots on the RBN. The most striking characteristic of FT8 spots is
their sheer quantity and it seems obvious that adding FT8 spots to the
spot flow could have a huge impact on the infrastructure of the RBN.

"We frankly do not know whether the RBN servers will be up to the
task", the RBN Team says, "so we decided we had better find out before
the autumn contest season is upon us". Effective immediately and on a
Beta test basis, the RBN's current spot feed
http://telnet.reversebeacon.net port 7000 will only handle CW and RTTY
spots, while http://telnet.reversebeacon.net port 7001 will be set up
for FT8 spots only. See www.reversebeacon.net/pages/FT8+Announcement+40
for more information.

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

BEWARE OF SCAMMERS ON THE SWAP SHOP

Tom Adams, ZS6OMT from Potchefstroom notified SARL News that he
advertised on the SARL Swap Shop for an Electronic Morse keyer and got
a response from a Graham Mckinnon from Bredasdorp in the Western Cape
with mobile number 083 338 0586. Tom deposited R350-00 into Mckinnon's
ABSA account on Friday 25 May 2018. Since then Tom gets no response via
the mobile phone and he has not received the keyer.

Can anybody help Tom find where Graham Mckinnon is? It is thought that
Mckinnon does work at the Naval Dockyard in Simonstown. Tom can be
contacted by e-mail at

WRC-19 PREPARATIONS UNDERWAY

Preparations for the next World Radio Conference in 2019 have continued
over the past few weeks with meetings at ITU HQ in Geneva and CEPT
Project Team D in Estonia. Volunteers from IARU and Member Societies
have been engaged on two key agenda items of interest to amateur radio;
regarding a potential 50 MHz allocation for Region 1 and Wireless Power
Transfer for charging electric vehicles.

For the latter topic, the RSGB has provided further information on
Wireless Power Transfer, including IARU briefing slides and links to
Ofcom measurements, on their WRC-19 focus page at
http://rsgb.org/main/news/special-fo...wrc-19-papers/. (RSGB
News)

SPACE STATION DIGITAL AMATEUR RADIO TV SYSTEM TRANSMITTER DETERMINED TO
BE DEFECTIVE

The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) "Ham
Video" Digital Amateur Radio TV (DATV) transmitter on the International
Space Station (ISS) is reported to be defective, with onboard repair
not possible. Also known as HamTV, the DATV system stopped working in
mid-April and a subsequent test on June 1 using a second L/S band patch
antenna on the Columbus module also failed.

ARISS-EU Mentor Gaston Bertels, ON4WF, said ARISS plans to return the
transmitter to Earth to repair, pending space agency approvals and
availability of ARISS funds. "Schools and crew members performing
educational ARISS school contacts are delighted to use Ham Video,"
Bertels said. "We will do the best we can to restart this service as
soon as possible."

Following extensive testing, the Ham TV system was first used for an
ARISS school contact in February 2016. (Southgate ARC News) PROPAGATION
REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected to
be at low levels. Currently there is only a single, stable sunspot
visible. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the expected
effective sunspot number for the week will be around one. The 20 and 30
m bands may provide lots of DX fun. Please visit the website
spaceweather.sansa.org.za for further information.

Finally, a Diary of some upcoming events:

Today - Father's Day and World QRP Day 21 to 25 June - the SARL Top
Band QSO Party 23 June - the Cape Town ARC meeting 28 June to 1 July -
the ZS SOTA Weekend 1 July - the ZS5 Sprint 7 July - the SARL Newbie
QSO Party

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

The SARL Top Band QSO Party is a fun activity to promote contacts on
160 metres between radio amateurs in Southern African countries and to
encourage radio amateurs to apply for the South African Radio League
Top Band Award and it takes place from 00:00 UTC on Thursday 21 June to
00:00 UTC on Monday 25 June 2018. The QSO Party is open to all licensed
amateurs that have access to the 160-metre band.

This concludes our bulletin for this morning.

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 program, 'Amateur Radio Today' at 10:00 Central African Time. The
program 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 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 Dennis Green, ZS4BS,
edited by Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, and read by ..............

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

/EX

======================= Message Ends =======================

To edit or remove your entry from this mailing list go to
www.sarl.org.za/members/admin/maildat.asp