SARL News in English 6/10/2007
 

SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE

SARL NEWS SUNDAY 07 OCTOBER 2007

You are listening to ZS6SRL the official Radio Station of the South
African Radio League, the National Body for Amateur Radio in South
Africa, with a news bulletin that is transmitted every Sunday at 08:15
CAT in Afrikaans and at 08:30 CAT in English. To listen to a web stream
or Echolink by ZS6FCS visit www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI and follow
the links for details.

This, and previous bulletins, can be downloaded from the
www.sarl.org.za. You can also read or download previous bulletins from
there and subscribe to receive future bulletins by email.

Your news reader this morning is Hans, ZS6KR, on 145,725 and 7,066 MHz
from Pretoria with relays on 3,695, 10,135, and 51,400 MHz as well as
438,825 and 1 297 MHz in the Pretoria area. (Other newsreaders please
change to suit).

SILENT KEYS

The Pretoria Amateur Radio Club regrets to announce that Don Blackburn,
ZS6CRT, became a silent key on Tuesday after a valiant battle with
cancer. Don was a past chairman of the club.

Our sincere condolences to his wife Sue, ZS6SUE, and his children
Jonathan ZR6JON and Samantha.

The key of Peter Finlay, ZS5ADN, became silent on 23 September after a
long illness. To his family and friends, our sincerest condolences.

Sharief Osman, ZS1SSB, affectionately known as Ozzy, passed away at the
age of 42 on the 22 September 2007. our sincerest condolences to his
wife Amina, 3 young children, other relatives and friends.

(PAUSE)

In the news today:

2008 SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION - A FEAST OF AMATEUR RADIO

INTECNET AND PRESIDENT'S NET TONIGHT

EXPANSION OF 40 METRE BAND

DRAFT POWERLINE REGULATION PROCESS CONTINUES

You are listening to ZS6SRL. Stay tuned for more detail on these and
other important and interesting news items.

2008 SARL NATIONAL CONVENTION - A FEAST OF AMATEUR RADIO

The SARL National convention will be held in Bloemfontein from 11 to 13
April 2008 and promises to be a weekend of amateur radio activity South
Africa has not seen for many years. The weekend will be hosted by the
Bloemfontein Amateur Radio Club and will include a visit to the Boyden
Observatory on the Friday evening. The Annual General Meeting will be
held on the Saturday morning followed by an ARDF demonstration Hunt and
various technical session covering HF, VHF and Hamnet.

Visits to the Leeuwberg museum and Onse Rust will be arranged with the
Gala Awards Dinner at the Commando Restaurant. The weekend will be
concluded with breakfast with a view at the ZS9X Contest station on
Sunday morning.

The organising committee is working with SA Airlink to provide special
travel and accommodation packages. Diarise the date now and stay tuned.
Information will be available on the web soon.

INTECNET AND PRESIDENT'S NET TONIGHT

The President's net will be held this evening, 7 October, starting at
19:00 and will be followed by the Intecnet.

SARL President, Graham Hartlett, will talk about plans for the 2008 AGM
and nominations for Council which are due soon. He will also discuss
the procedure for affiliated clubs to offer the class B examination for
their students. The full examination procedure and the necessary
application forms will be available on the member pages of the web
after his presentation.

The Intecnet will feature a discussion on the HMO/SARL 40 metre beacon
programme led by Dr Lee-Anne McKinnell of the HMO. John Willescroft,
ZS6EF, who is constructing the beacon equipment will discuss the design
and operational issues. A PowerPoint presentation is available on the
web at www.sarl.org.za, click on ARMI.

Clubs wishing to link their repeaters should send details of the
telephone number to by noon today.

EXPANSION OF 40 METRE BAND

The SARL receives regular questions from amateurs about the expansion
of the 40 metre band. The issue is on the top of the Agenda in our
interaction with ICASA. There are however several problems to be
overcome. One is that South Africa's signal distributor, Sentech, is
still using that segment and will have to relocate to higher in the
band. The SARL is in discussion with Sentech. In terms of the ITU
agreement they have the right to continue using the spectrum till 2009.

HAVE YOU PAID YOUR SUBSCRIPTION?

Invoices were mailed in June, with follow-up reminders in August and
September. If you have not yet renewed your membership, please do it as
soon as possible. Members who have not remitted their dues by the end
of October will no longer receive Radio ZS or have access to the
member-only section of the SARL web. Your membership is important for
Amateur Radio; it is our collective voice through the SARL, the
national Body for Amateur Radio, which needs to be strong and
representative. Your membership makes that difference. If you are not a
member yet, it is never too late to join. Application forms are
available on www.sarl.org.za.

DRAFT POWERLINE REGULATION PROCESS CONTINUES

At the SABS TC80 meeting on Thursday ICASA informed the committee that
the draft regulations for PLT, Power Line Telecommunications, will be
tabled for discussion at the Standards Liaison Committee this coming
Thursday. The SARL was part of the drafting of the interim regulations
and made several demands that for example all amateur HF bands are
permanently notched. The SARL's position was noted but in the final
draft to be discussed by the SLC no notching was included. Positive
aspects of the draft regulations are the inclusion of an interference
mitigation process and the requirement that a public accessible data
base of PLT installations be maintained. PLT vendors must also give
notice of planned installations.

The SARL made further representation to ICASA that International
experience has shown that interference standards based on FCC limits
are inadequate and will lead to unnecessary mitigation processes. A
recent report from the ARRL laboratory pointing out the inadequacy of
the FCC standards was also submitted.

At the TC80 meeting several additional problems were highlighted which
will be discussed by the Chairman of the TC80 workgroup on EMC at the
SLC meeting which he has been invited to attend.

After the final draft is agreed at the SLC, the draft regulations will
be published in the Government Gazette for comment. The SARL is
preparing its comment based on current known aspects of the draft
regulation and will fine tune its objections once the final draft has
been published. It is expected that the SARL will also attend public
hearings.

AMATEUR RADIO DIRECTION FINDING - SARL RECOMMENDS THE 80 m APPROACH FOR
NOW

At last week's Council meeting the future participation of South Africa
in the ARDF - Amateur Radio Direction Finding competitions held
annually by the IARU in Europe was discussed. On recommendation of the
IARU ARDF committee chairman, Reinhardt Floesser, it was decided to
first tackle ARDF on 80 metres. The reason for this is that on 2 metres
too many reflections occur which for the newcomer presents problems in
a multi transmitter competition which is the IARU standard. Later on 2
m ARDF will be added. The international competitions are presented in
two categories, HF and VHF.

The SARL is studying the various circuits and kits available and would
welcome input from clubs and individuals. Please send your comments to
. An Intecnet with Rhynhardt Floesser is being
planned for 25 November.

JOTA AND JOTI 20 TO 21 OCTOBER

Dave Gemmell, ZS6AAW, SA National JOTA Co-ordinator makes it known that
Jamboree-on-the-Air, JOTA, and Jamboree-on-the-Internet, JOTI, will
take place on 20 and 21 October.

Many thanks to Evan Davies, ZS6EVD, Eddie Leighton, ZS6BNE, and
Lichtenburg ARC who planned, and will be operating as, ZS50MAF, in
Mafikeng.

This year's is the 50th JOTA and 11th JOTI and it's not too late to
arrange a JOTA station which can be put together in an hour or two!

If you had not been approached by scouts, invite them for a day or
week-end to do experiments with antennas and contact local and overseas
JOTA stations. Introduce them to different modes such as , CW, RTTY PSK
31, ECHOLINK, Skype, etc. from your club house, home or where ever.

Remember, register your station as an educational station with the SARL
at least 7 days before the main event so that your unlicenced guests
may also use your transmitting equipment under your guidance and derive
maximum enjoyment from the event. Forms for this purpose are available
on www.sarl.org

More international info. can be found on www.jota.org or
www.jotajoti.org

SPRING QRP SPRINT RESULTS

Nine logs were received for the Spring QRP Sprint held on Sunday 9
September, 4 in the 5 watt class and 5 in the 1 watt class. The results
are as follows

5 Watts: 1st Vidi, ZS1EL 2 992 points; 2nd Ruaan, ZS6RMS 1 600 points;
3rd Oakdale ARC, ZS1OAK 1 540 points; 4th Allen, ZR1AAH 864 points.

1 Watt: 1st Jan, ZS4JAN 15 120 points; 2nd Andre, ZS2ACP 12 960 points;
3rd Pam, ZS6APT 3 960 points; 4th Pierre, ZS6BQS 2 520 points; 5th
Franz, ZS6EU 640 points.

Congratulations to the winners.

PROPAGATION REPORT

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will
be at very low levels. The geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet in
general increasing to unsettled levels on 17 till 19 October. The
expected Effective Sun Spot number for the coming week will be less
than 5. Fortunately with the arrival of summer DX conditions are also
warming up a bit.

15 m and 20 m will provide best opportunities for DX. There is a
possibility of 15 and 20 m openings towards India from about 10:00 CAT.
There may be 20 m openings to Australia from about 06:00. From 16:00
there may be 15 and 20 m openings towards Europe. From 18:00 there may
be 15 and 80 m openings towards the USA.

For the CW and digital enthusiasts it will also be worth monitoring 10
MHz.

Locally conditions on 40 m is going to be good during the day and even
30 m may perform well over the longer distances.

It is once again time to work towards your 80 m WAZS award in the
evenings. Remember that this is only a prediction and that HF always
has the capability to surprise you. You will never know what you are
missing unless you switch your rig on, listen and also call CQ.

Please visit www.spaceweather.co.za for further information.

DIARY OF EVENTS

7 October, tonight - President's Net and Intechnet; 18 October - Class
A RAE; 20 October - Comments on SARL 2008 Competition Handbook to be
in; 20 and 21 october - JOTA and JOTI;

SARL News invites clubs and individuals to submit news stories of
interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners. Submit news stories
if possible in both English and Afrikaans to
www.sarl.org.za/newsinbox.asp not later than the Thursday preceding the
bulletin date.

The SARL also invites you to listen to the programme Amateur Radio
Mirror International, on the air every Sunday morning at 10:00 CAT on
145,750 MHz in the Pretoria area with relays on 7 082, 7 205 and 17 590
kHz. For the web stream and echolink by ZS6FCS visit www.sarl.org.za,
click on ARMI and follow the links. A repeat transmission can be heard
Mondays at 21:00 CAT on 3 215 kHz. Sentech sponsors the ARMI
transmissions on the non-amateur frequencies.

Today's South African Radio League news bulletin was compiled by
George, ZS6NE, and transmitted by (your name and call sign).

Thank you for listening. 73.

/EX

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