• SA Radio League News Bulletin for Sunday 13 May 2001

    From Richard Peer@5:7106/22 to SA Radio League on Saturday, May 12, 2001 16:13:00
    SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
    SARL NEWS SUNDAY 13 MAY 2001

    This is Amateur Radio Station ZS6SRL transmitting Amateur Radio News, a
    service by the South African Radio League, the National society for Amateur Radio in South Africa, for the interest of all Radio Amateurs, Short-wave Listeners and Electronic Enthusiasts. For a complete list of broadcast times and frequencies please send a SASE to Amateur Radio News, SARL, P O Box 1721, Strubensvallei 1735.

    This bulletin is also available on the SARL's web pages hosted by Intekom at www.sarl.org.za, as well as the packet radio bulletin board system. You may also request sarlnuus@mweb.co.za to e-mail it to you in either text or MSWord 6.0 format.


    Here are the headlines of today's news:

    AMATEUR RADIO GO TO SCHOOL ON MAY 17

    AMATEUR RADIO AT HOME AT THE NARC

    INTECNET TO FOCUS ON INTERNET LINKING OF REPEATERS

    NEXT RAE WILL BE WRITTEN ON 25 OKTOBER 2001

    JOIN THE SARL NOW

    PROPAGATION REPORT

    You are listening to ZS6SRL. The news follows in detail.

    AMATEUR RADIO GO TO SCHOOL ON MAY 17

    Various schools will take part in a special event on Thursday May 17.
    Between 11:00 and 12:00 learners from various schools will participate in a discussion on bridging the digital divide. The net will be held on 7082 kHz. After the hour long event learners are encouraged to make direct contact with learners from participating schools on any amateur frequency under the
    guidance of licensed amateurs.

    To get discussion material send an Email to arisas@intekom.co.za.

    AMATEUR RADIO AT HOME AT THE NARC

    On May 19 the SARL will hold a fun day at the National Amateur Radio Centre
    as part of the World Telecommunications Day celebrations. One of the highlights will be the launch of BACAR- Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio. The BACAR payload will include:

    * APRS on 144.2125 MHz with telemetry and GPS information
    * Beacon on 145.550 MHz
    * Cross band repeater on 433.5 uplink 145.825 downlink.

    The Bacar flight is scheduled for lift off at 07:15. A launch net will be conducted on 7070 kHz

    Many activities have been planned for the day. The programme is as follows:

    07:15 Bacar Launch
    Tracking activity at the Icom Reno Faber Memorial Station

    08:30 - 10:30 Fleamarket and bootsale

    09:30- 13:00 Teacher Amateur Radio Workshop

    10:30 Film "Frequency"

    12:00 Antenna Towers and the Environmental Control act

    10:00- 14:00 Looking at the Sun

    14:00- 15:00 Introduction to The SARL mentorship Programme

    14:00 Film: Frequency

    In addition there will be activities for the kid and food stalls.


    INTECNET TO FOCUS ON INTERNET LINKING OF REPEATERS

    Internet repeater linking represents an important element in the future of Amateur Radio. With a hand-held transceiver it will be possible to connect
    to any repeater in the world by punching in 4 digits. The Internet makes all this possible. Ian Able G3ZHI will take listeners through the process, discussing ideas and providing references to websites where the necessary software can be downloaded. This will be followed by an interactive Q&A session.

    Intecnet200I is presented monthly by the South African Radio League and can
    be heard on 3215 kHz in the 90 metreband. This transmission is sponsored by Sentech The next talkshow is on Sunday 27 May 2001 at 20:00 CAT It is also linked interactively to two metre repeaters in all major centres of South Africa.

    NEXT RAE WILL BE WRITTEN ON 25 OKTOBER 2001

    The SARL RAE Examiner, Rasie ZS1YT, has infromed SARLNEWS that due to university, technikon and school examinations, the SARL decided to advance
    the date of the next RAE to 25th October 2001. By advancing the examination
    it can be assured that the issuing of call signs to successful candidates
    will be completed before the end of the year.

    The closing date for registration is 25th October 2001. The registration fee is R135-00. No late registrations will be accepted. Registrations received after 25 October will be carried forward to the next examination in 2002.

    Registration forms are available on the SARL web site at www.sarl.org.za.

    JOIN THE SARL NOW

    Membership of a National Amateur Radio Society is one of the most important parts of being a Radio Amateur. While your local club provides activities,
    the SARL looks after the interest of Amateur radio at national regulatory
    level and is continuously engaged in the protection and expansion of the allocated frequency spectrum. At the recent Annual Dinner of the SARL
    chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Communications, Ned Kekana, said:

    "The SARL has to raise its profile beyond its traditional footprint. Organizations have to grow and attract new blood. Numbers are important if
    you are to be taken seriously by government and the private sector.
    Therefore the growth of SARL both qualitative and quantitative is a necessity for the survival and viability of amateur radio in South Africa. Without
    being too prescriptive, I think your organization should be a home to all
    South Africans who have an interest in amateur radio. The SARL membership
    must reflect a cross mixture of our country's population including women and the disabled. There has to be a special effort to reach out to young radio amateurs in the rural areas."

    You can make it happen by join now. Membership for the 2001/2002 year is
    only R265. Join now and get May and June free. The year runs from 1 July -
    30 June. Call 011 675- 2393 between 09:00 and 13:00 Monday to Friday.

    AO-40 ALIVE AND WELL

    The RUDAK system had been activated for the first time following the December incident. Command station operator W4SM reported the power budget stayed positive and everything looked normal during the first test. The RUDAK team then began uploading programming to the RUDAK CPU's.

    James, G3RUH, reported good copy of the RUDAK beacon, which is about the same signal strength as the IHU middle beacon. Testing and commissioning plans
    will continue.

    AMSAT-NA President Robin Haighton, VE3FRH, released the following to ANS: It was with great pleasure that I worked AO-40 early in the morning of Saturday, May 5th. Signals were generally good. To satellite enthusiasts there is nothing quite as exciting as working a new bird, especially when we have all watched and waited as AO-40 went through it's troubles and (now) is returning to us as a great satellite. The very hard work that Project Leader Karl Meinzer, AMSAT-DL President Peter Guelzow and the worldwide supporting group
    of command stations and technical individuals - is providing us with a great satellite. Thank you all!


    ITU DISASTER COMMUNICATIONS DOCUMENTS APPROVED

    The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has announced the approval by
    the International Telecommunication Union Development Sector (ITU-D) of two landmark documents related to amateur radio disaster communications in developing countries. These documents represent the culmination of two years of work by the IARU and ITU-D Study Group 2.

    The first is Recommendation ITU-D 13, Effective utilisation of the amateur services in disaster mitigation and relief operations. It recommends that administrations include the amateur services in their national disaster
    plans, reduce barriers to effective use of the amateur services for disaster communications, and develop memoranda of understanding (MoU) with amateur and disaster relief organisations.

    The second, now being finalised for printing, is the Disaster Communications Handbook for Developing Countries. This was a joint effort of the IARU and
    the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) with contributions from L.M. Ericsson (Sweden), Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) (USA), and others. The Handbook, to be published in
    English, French and Spanish, will have three parts devoted to policy, operational and technical considerations of disaster communications. The Handbook is scheduled for printing this year and will be available from the
    ITU bookshop.


    PROPAGATION REPORT

    Ean Retief, ZS1PR, reports as follows: The week started off with two Coronal Mass Ejections on Monday the 7th. Fortunately both ejections were mainly directed westwards most of the ejected mass missed the Earth.

    It was not all plain sailing, because a certain amount of magnetic activity
    did occur as well as a bombardment of heavier particles on Monday and
    Tuesday, the so-called "Proton event".

    At the same time the Solar Flux reached it's low point. These factors caused DX signals to be fairly weak. The situation was compounded by noise in the Northern Hemisphere that made it difficult for stations to copy weaker stations. The coming week looks fairly good.

    However, a large Coronal Hole is open on the Sun that should elevate the
    speed of the Solar wind in the next two or three days. This should keep the Earth's magnetic field unsettled until Tuesday. It is expected that the
    Solar Flux will increase markedly from Wednesday and that the figure should reach 180 by next Sunday. The signal levels should also noticeably increase. The closer you are located to the equator, the better the signals will be in the coming week.

    ACTIVITIES TO PARTICIPATE IN

    World Telecommunication Day 17 May when stations will operate from various schools.

    A BACAR flight will take place on May 19 with a mode transponder, telemetry
    and recovery beacons and an APRS transmitter on board. The uplink will be on 70 cm and the downlink on 2 m.

    The SARL News Service invites Clubs and individuals to contribute information regarding Amateur Radio to sarlnuus@mweb.co.za with a copy to gth@freemail.absa.co.za. Please submit in Afrikaans and English wherever possible and send it as early in the week as possible.

    Also join us in the following activities:
    The President's Net on Sundays 12:00 on 7082 kHz.
    Amateur Radio Mirror International Sundays at 10:00 on 9750 and 21560 kHz
    which are sponsored by Sentech, the common carrier for broadcasting signals
    in South Africa and Telkom who provides the transmission lines. This transmission is repeated Mondays at 20:00 on 3215 kHz.

    Correspondence for Amateur Radio Mirror International is via armi@intekom.co.za. Include your telephone number to allow the producers to call you for a possible interview.

    Send written reports to PO Box 90438 Garsfontein 0042 and include a self-addressed envelope and sufficient postage so that you may receive a QSL card.

    We thank all contributors, individuals, clubs and other organisations to this bulletin and all stations who so reliably relay these bulletins. This
    bulletin was compiled by Marten, ZS6ZY, and read by ..........

    You have been listening to ZS6SRL.

    This bulletin now ends and Sarlnews wish you a pleasant week.

    Goodbye to all.

    /ex
    --------------------------------------------------
    Internet feed from ZS6ZY moved by Richard de ZR6CK

    Regards,
    Richard.

    --- Msged/Q 1.60
    * Origin: QTHR KG44DG, Novell User Group, Pretoria, RSA (5:7106/22)