SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE NEWS SUNDAY 29 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 LAST CALL FOR MOTIONS FOR THE 2017 AGM AND COUNCIL NOMINATIONS

HAMNET GAUTENG SOUTH AND EKHURULENI SIGN A MOU

and

EARLY REPORT ON PEARS NATIONAL VHF AND UHF CONTEST

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

** Despite requesting the following information from League members via
SARL Communication e-mails on 11 December 2016, 12 December 2016 and 13
January 2017 as well as SARL News of 8 and 21 January, only one
nomination for Council and one nomination for a SARL Award has been
received. No motions for the 2017 AGM or other nominations for SARL or
Radio ZS awards have yet been received. The closing date for motions
and nominations is midnight on Tuesday 31 January 2017.

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. Four of the present Councillors will retire at the 2017 AGM,
but can be re-elected if nominated and seconded. The following
Councillors have indicated that they will retire but are available for
re-election - Rassie Erasmus, ZS1YT, Geoff Levey, ZS6C, Nico van
Rensburg, ZS6QL, and Shane Bailey, ZS6ZSB. Etienne Naude, ZS6EFN, who
was appointed by Council as the League Secretary, has indicated that he
is standing down, but has not yet decided if he will be available for
election.

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 Two 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.

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.

** Hamnet Gauteng South has worked for many years with the Ekhuruleni
Metropolitan Municipality when asked to assist with xenophobic
incidents, tornadoes, old age home fires and the like under the
stewardship of the previous Hamnet Gauteng South Provincial Director,
Chris Gryffenburg, ZS6COG. The fruits of his labour culminated this
week with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Hamnet
Gauteng South and the Municipality. This places a formal protocol and
responsibility between the two organisations into the future. Signing
the document was the new Hamnet Gauteng South Provincial Director,
Glynn Chamberlain, ZS6GLN, and Mr Moshema Mosia, the Head of
Department: Disaster and Emergency Management Services EMM, and Bafana
Mazibuko, Acting Director General Disaster Management EMM. Mr Mosia
expressed his appreciation of Hamnet's efforts in the past and said he
looked forward to working with our organisation well into the future.

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

** Hamnet Database. If you are a member of Hamnet, you should by now
have been asked to update your details using the new Hamnet Members Web
Portal at http://portal.hamnet.co.za.

If you have not received such a request, it is likely that your e-mail
address on the Hamnet database is outdated. Please contact your Hamnet
Regional Director for instructions on how to correct this. We will
consider all those who have not registered and updated their details on
the Hamnet members portal as no longer being interested being members
of Hamnet. Those persons will be removed from the Hamnet member's
database during the course of February.

** Notwithstanding the poor Tropo propagation during the contest, a
number of log sheets have been received from several divisions for the
PEARS VHF/UHF Contest. Nevertheless, Meteor Scatter from minor meteors
enabled digital operators to break all previous contest distance
records on 50 MHz and 70 MHz FSK441 with a new distance of 1346 km.

Here is a special request to all participants please submit your log
sheet, even if you made only a few contacts, as all the logs will
provide an analysis of VHF propagation as well as participation across
the country. This type of observation can only be made during a
countrywide VHF contest. Furthermore, PEARS would treat your log also
as a thank you for their efforts in running the contest. The deadline
for log sheets is on 15 February 2017 and you can submit it in any
form.

** February is a busy month for local contests. The month kicks off
with the Antique Wireless Association CW Activity Day, which runs from
13:00 - 15:00 UTC on Sunday 5 February 2017. The aim of the AWA CW
Activity Day is for participants to contact as many amateurs as
possible on the 20, 40 and 80 m amateur bands.

The South African Radio League National Field Day is on the air from
10:00 UTC on Saturday 11 February to 10:00 UTC on Sunday 12 February
2017. The aim is to work as many stations as possible on all the HF
amateur bands (excluding the 2 200, 630, 60, 30, 17 and 12 m bands). In
doing so, to learn to operate in abnormal situations in less than
optimal conditions. A premium is placed on developing skills to meet
the challenges of emergency preparedness as well as to acquaint the
public with the capabilities of Amateur Radio.

On Saturday 18 February, the South African Radio League Youth Sprint
will be on the air from 08:00 to 10:00 UTC. This is a fun activity to
celebrate the Youth and to promote contacts between young radio
amateurs in Southern African countries.

Moreover, the last local contest for the month is the South African
Radio League Digital Contest and that takes place on Sunday 26 February
2017 from 13:00 UTC to 16:00 UTC, The aim is to establish as many
contacts as possible between radio amateurs in Southern Africa using
PSK31 and/or RTTY. The contest is open to all radio amateurs in
Southern Africa

** The February 2017 issue of Radio ZS will be available for download
from the league web site from Tuesday 31 January.

** It is nearly time to take your fleas to market! Come and join us for
the East Rand Branch Summer Flea Market on Saturday 4 February at the
ERB Club House at Arrowe Park, Ebenezer Street, Benoni. Sales start
officially at 12:00! Please respect this and give everyone a chance to
buy or take your wares! We once again call on members to come volunteer
their services for the day to make it a success! Tables are R20 each
and you can contact Armand at 079 465 3271 or with
your booking. As always, the cash bar will be open and our legendary
boerewors rolls will be available. The "DMX Sound Machine ©" will be
providing music for the day. Bring along all those white elephant items
the wife complains about, someone will take it off your hands - the
white elephant items, not your wife! Spread the word and hope to see
you there!

** Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the solar activity is expected
to be at low levels. There are several sunspots visible but none is
actively flaring. If you want to do your own frequency predictions, the
expected effective sunspot number for the week will be around 7. 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

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 4 February - the East Rand Branch Flea
Market 5 February - AWA CW Activity 11 February - closing date for the
SDR Workshop registration 11 and 12 February - the SARL National Field
Day and the Midmar Mile 15 February - closing date for PEARS VHF/UHF
Contest logs 18 February - the SDR Workshop at the NARC and the SARL
Youth Sprint 25 February - West Rand ARC Flea Market 26 February - SARL
Digital Contest 27 February - National Milk Tart Day

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

Despite requesting the following information from League members via
SARL Communication e-mails on 11 December 2016, 12 December 2016 and 13
January 2017 as well as SARL News of 8 and 21 January, only one
nomination for Council and one nomination for a SARL Award has been
received. No motions for the 2017 AGM or other nominations for SARL or
Radio ZS awards have yet been received. The closing date for motions
and nominations is midnight on Tuesday 31 January 2017.

** 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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