SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
SARL NEWS SUNDAY MARCH 4 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:

BACAR TO FLY AGAIN

SETI INTECNET A RUN AWAY SUCCESS

SARL TO TAKE ON MORE LICESING RESPONSIBILITY

OVERBERG AMATEUR RADIO CLUB ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE

BOUVET ISLAND OPERATION COMES TO AN END

OSCAR 40 EMERGES FROM THE EARTH'S SHADOW

SPACE STATION SHIFT CHANGE SET WITH NEXT SHUTTLE LAUNCH

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

BACAR TO FLY AGAIN

The South African Radio League has decided to re-introduce the BACAR project that was so popular a decade ago and drew the participation of large numbers
of Radio Amateurs and Electronic Hobbyist. The first flight is scheduled for mid May from the National Amateur Radio Centre in Gauteng

BACAR is the acronym for Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio, a project that involves the flight of a weather balloon with several radio transmitters and experiments.

A BACAR information and planning meeting will be held at the SARL National Amateur Radio Centre on Wednesday 14 March at 18:00. All interested in BACAR are invited to attend.

The NARC is situated at Sender Technology Park, Radiokop, Roodepoort. For directions send an Email to sarl@intekom.co.za or telephone Wally Sime on 011 675-2393 weekdays between 09:00 and 13:00.

SETI INTECNET A RUN AWAY SUCCESS

The SARL Intecnet 2001 held last Sunday drew a large listenership and participation. Over 170 radio amateurs called in after the programme which
ran for over two hours. Pretoria tops the list with 50 call-ins. DR Paul Such, Director of the Seti-League dealt mainly with the technical and amateur radio component of Seti while prof Alex Antonites of the University of
Pretoria dealt with the subject at a more philosophical level.

If you listened and did not report in to your local relay station, please
send an Email to armi@intekom.co.za or call the Amateur Radio Mirror International comment line on 088 100 3400. Your report is important to support our sponsorship application which is due later this week. Send an Email with your comments now or call 088 100 3400.

The next Intecnet 2001 will be held on Sunday 1 April at 20:00. Radio propagation will be the subject for discussion with a panel of local and international experts looking at the current cycle, have we reached mid
point, how fast is the decline likely to be and what is in store after that?


SARL TO TAKE ON MORE LICESING RESPONSIBILITY

ICASA and the SARL have entered into an agreement which gives the SARL the responsibility to administer the examining and licensing of new Radio
Amateurs. The new process will greatly speed up and issuing of licences and callsign and get new Amateur on the air faster.

When enrolling for the RAE candidates are requested to submit three preferred callsigns. These are checked by ICASA and the allocated callsign is supplied to the SARL in advance of the examination. The SARL will administer the rest and in co-operation with ICASA send the successful candidate his or her
licence and callsign.

The cost of the licence is included in the RAE enrolment fee which for the
May 10 examination in R135 if the enrolment and payment is received before April 10. Late enrolments are excepted till April 17 at a premium cost of R235.


A similar procedure is followed after taking the morse code test. Candidates remit R35 to the SARL for the ZS callsign and licence.

To avoid disappointment, candidates are urged to check the SARL online
callbook at www.sarl.org.za before selected their three preferred callsigns.

The new arrangements will apply to all candidates who wish to write the RAE
and obtain an Amateur Radio Licence.

OVERBERG AMATEUR RADIO CLUB ELECTS A NEW COMMITTEE

The Annual General Meeting of ZS1OAR, the Overberg Amateur Radio Club, was
held on 24 February 2001. The committee for the next year will be:

Chairman : ZS1WC Johan Classen
Vice Chair: ZR1VR Len van Riel
Secretary: ZS1AIJ Arthur Jordaan
Treasurer: ZS1SR Kosie Smit
BBS : ZS1TGH Tim Hewitt
Technical: ZR1GD Willem Jooste
Editor : "Radio Overberg" ZR1GD Willem Jooste

BOUVET ISLAND OPERATION COMES TO AN END

Dennis Wells, ZS1AU, informed SARL NEWS that dr Charles Brady 3Y0C (known to the world as Chuck ) and for the past 3 months has been on a oneman operation to BOUVET Island, this has come to an end. The group of 5 scientists which included Chuck also as the doctor and the radio amateur have spent 3 months
on this most unhospitable Island in the world. The ship bringing them back
to Cape Town has to airlift them from the island and this is going to be delayed due to extremely bad weather in the area. The pick-up is scheduled
for about the time this bulletin is being read this morning. Chuck who holds the call N4BQW is also NASA's No 1 astronaut and is due to go up to the ISS ( INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ) on a shuttle flight, later this year. Chuck
has indicated to his pilot station, ZS1AU, that he will be giving a talk at
the OAKDALE CLUB meeting, shortly after his return to Cape Town, a date still to be announced. The monthly meeting is normally held on the 2nd Monday of each month and it is hoped to be held on the 12 th March but could be altered by a day or two to co-incide with Chuck's arrival. All radio amateurs and families are invited to attend as this promises to be the " one " of a lifetime. The exact meeting date will be put over local repeater frequencies in the Cape Town area during this coming week, so keep listening.

OSCAR 40 EMERGES FROM THE EARTH'S SHADOW News that the sun had begun
triggering Oscar 40's sun sensor, as the satellite emerged from the earth's shadow, has boosted ground controllers' optimism that they might be able to regain control over the satellite's spin rate and attitude sooner than had
been predicted. For the past few weeks, Oscar 40 has remained in what AMSAT called "a semi-hibernation state," because the satellite's high angle has prevented the sensor from seeing the sun's light. Once ground controllers
can get accurate attitude data, they should be able to aim the satellite's high-gain antennas for optimal reception on earth. They have been relying on telemetry from the satellite's 2.4GHz downlink - the only transmitter now operating - but they remain hopeful that at least some of the satellite's
other transmitters still function.


SPACE STATION SHIFT CHANGE SET WITH NEXT SHUTTLE LAUNCH

It's almost time for a shift change aboard the International Space Station,
and two hams are among the new crew members. Relieving the current ISS crew will be the Expedition 2 team of Commander Yuri Usachev, UA9AD/R3MIR, of
Russia and US astronauts Susan Helms, KC7NHZ, and Jim Voss. The Expedition 2 crew is scheduled to head into space March 8 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. The Expedition 1 crew has spent more than four months in orbit.



PROPAGATION CONDITIONS

Ean Retief, ZS1PR, reports as follows: Once again the Solar Flux and Sunspot count kept declining, notwithstanding all expectations and forecasts to the contrary.

At the moment the Flux figure is in the 130 vicinity and expected to stay in that region for the coming week. By next weekend is should rise slightly,
but the value is not expected to rise much above 150.

Notwithstanding that the Maximum Usable Frequency for long distances is still rising to above 30 Mhz and the 10 metre band will give propagation.

The critical vertical incidence rises to above 10 MHz by the early forenoon, meaning that the 15 metre band will give good propagation in the Southern Africa region for most of the day. That will be followed by good DX in the late afternoon.

There were no major outbursts on the Sun and Geomagnetic conditions were
fairly quiet.

At the moment there is a large Coronal hole that is busy moving into Geoeffective position and it is expected that the Geomagnetic Field will be affected. It is however expected that the Field will be at quiet to
Unsettled levels and that no major disruptions will occur.


CLUB ACTIVITIES


The Pretoria Amateur Radio Club will be holding a fleamarket and boot sale on Saturday 31 March at 08:00. This will again be a grand occasion and all are welcome to visit us at the University grounds as usual. Reserve the 31st for
a nice get-together and bargain hunt.

Contact Hans ZS6KR for more information and table bookings at 012 333 2612.

DATES TO REMEMBER

The closing date for registration for the May RAE is April 10, registration
fee R135, and for late registration April 17 with registration fee R235.

The SARL AGM will be held in Cape Town over the weekend of 27-28 April 2001. More details will be announced later.

The SARL News Service invites Clubs and individuals to contribute information regarding Amateur Radio to sarlnuus@mweb.co.za with a copy to gth@mweb.co.za. Please submit in Afrikaans and English wherever 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 is repeated
Mondays at 20:00 on 3215 kHz. Relays on various 2M repeaters can also be heard.

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.

These transmissions are sponsored by Sentech, the common carrier for broadcasting signals in South Africa and Telkom who provides the transmission lines. Various local repeater frequencies on 2 metres and 70 cm are also
used in your area.

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 ZS.... in.......

You have been listening to ZS6SRL.

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

Goodbye to all.
/ex
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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)