SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
SARL NEWS SUNDAY JULY 23 2000

This is Amateur Radio Station ZS6SRL transmitting Amateur Radio News , a service from the South African Radio League 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:

TELKOM INTECNET 2000

FREESTATE VHF GROUP

VHF RESULTS MARCH 2000 CONTEST

SARL HF PHONE AND CW CONTESTS 2000

US HAMS TOLD TO JUSTIFY FREQUENCY USAGE

OPPORTUNITY FOR FOUR RADIO AMATEURS TO GO TO ANTARCTICA

PROPAGATION REPORT

You are listening to ZS6SRL, the news follows in detail.


TELKOM INTECNET 2000

Due to unforeseen landline problems the INTECNET scheduled for tonight had
to be postponed until a later date. An announcement will be made soonest
when the next TELKOM INTECNET will take place.

FREESTATE VHF GROUP

A group of VHF enthusiasts from the Free State are looking for contacts on 144.200 MHz USB and 144.500 MHz FM. They are QRV daily from 07:00 to 09:00
and 19:00 to 22:00 CAT. After 21:00 the beams are turned towards Port Elizabeth. Look out for Nico ZS4NS and Mike ZR4MF in Welkom, Tas ZS4TV,
Jimmy ZS4JBC and Hennie ZS4HG in Bloemfontein and Nico ZS4NIC in Aliwal
Noord. Contact Nico ZS4NS for more information at: zs4ns@marques.co.za

MARCH 2000 VHF CONTEST RESULTS

MULTI-OPERATOR FIELD STATION CATEGORY

ZS4BFN 400,5

FIXED STATION - MULTI OPERATOR CATEGORY

ZS6KTT 1915 ZS6STN 1798 ZS6WR 241



FIXED STATION - SINGLE OPERATOR CATEGORY

ZS6EGB 1786 ZR6JRN 1689 ZR6ZL 1581

FIXED STATION - FM ONLY

ZS6GA 806 ZS6XT 278 ZS6BPA 147

NOTE: ZS6TDK disqualified under General Rule 11.

SARL HF PHONE AND CW CONTESTS

The League's two premier operating events are just around the corner.
According to the standing rules the Phone contest takes place on the first Sunday and the CW contest on the last Sunday of August. This year, the relevant dates are 6 August for Phone and 27 August for CW. The contest
runs from 15:00 to 18:00 SAST.

The contests provide an excellent opportunity to hone your operating skills
and to renew old acquaintances, and also an excellent excuse to make those station improvements you've been thinking about.

All radio amateurs in Southern Africa may participate. Here follows
everything you need to know. The 20, 40 and 80 metre bands are used.
Contact as many Southern African stations as you can, and exchange reports
and serial numbers with each of them. For example, your first contact on
phone is number 59 001. He might give you something like 57 002, depending
on how quickly he got off the mark.

You should also try to contact as many ZS call areas possible. There are
two additional areas which are defined in the rules i.e our easterly and westerly neighbours.

In the past the ZS3 call area has been the most difficult to find. If
you're a ZS3, now is your chance to be in demand. Most participants will follow propagation conditions as sun moves. The activity starts on 20
metres and within half an hour or so, most of the participants will move to 40m. Towards the end of the contest, most of the activity will be on 80m.
You must try to catch as many stations and areas on each band as you can
before the other participants move down to the next band.

There can be only a handful of winners in the contest. However, the
contests provide a good opportunity for anyone, regardless of experience
and skill level to listen to the experts. You'll hear some slick operators
who log stations at a furious rate and you'll hear some operating practices that you will definitely not want to emulate. Learn from the courteous and efficient operators, and you'll see how your own operating style changes
for the better.

If you're chasing the Worked All ZS award, you'll find no better
opportunity to make rapid progress. Especially in the Phone contest, the leading operators come very close to meeting the full requirements in this contest.

A full set of rules appear on the League's webpage.


NEW MEMBERS

The Council of the SARL welcomes the following new members and trust that
their association with the SARL will be long and pleasant.

Andrew Soper ZS2VJZ
Neumann Thomas ZS6AT
Anna Castelyn ZSL037
Peter Linscott ZSL038
Mark Muuren ZSL039

RADIO AMATEURS ASSIST BOEING CORPORATION

The Boeing Aerospace Corporation has enlisted the help of VK4 amateur radio operators in North Queensland in doing range testing of the new HF Radio network it is currently installing for the Australian Defence Forces. It
seems the project managers could not find anyone really conversant and
flexible enough to help with the provision of the HF Radio network until someone mentioned the existence of HAMS! Boeing advise that they have been liaising with Australian Communication Authorities regional manager
Gerry/VK4HT regarding the licensing requirements for the testing and that
every assistance would be given to help with the testing which takes place sometime during the next month or so.

US HAMS TOLD TO JUSTIFY FREQUENCY USAGE

The FCC has been exhorting American radio amateurs to fulfil all parts of
their hobby. Although the future for them is seemingly bright, radio
amateurs must substantiate their free use of the radio spectrum, having
been told that they must "do a better job of justifying their current allocations". Hams have been encouraged to explore advanced techniques
that reduce spectrum demands, especially in the realms of digital
techniques. It was also suggested that software-defined radios could
herald "a new era of amateur experimentation" and could represent "the
final merger" of radio communications and computers..

OPPORTUNITY FOR FOUR RADIO AMATEURS TO GO TO ANTARCTICA

Four vacant posts exist in the Antarctic expedition departing 1 December
2000. The posts are Electronic, Electrical and mechanical engineers and a diesel mechanic. The training program commences on 1 st September 2000.
For more information contact Marten ZS6ZY, tel. & fax : 012 332-2104 or
e:mail at: marten@mweb.co.za.

PROPAGATION REPORT

The magnetic storm of last weekend was the most intense since the great
storm of 1989. Fortunately this one was not as intense as the 1989 one and Southern Africa missed most of it's effects.

Locally the major effects noticed by Amateurs last Saturday was solar noise from 28 to 146 MHz. Sunday the ten metre band was completely dead.

In the northern hemisphere things were considerably more difficult and
radio contact was disrupted to a considerable degree.

The one thing that almost all forecasters got wrong was the solar flux for
last week. Almost to a man we forecast that the peak of the 28 day cycle
was over and that the solar flux will decline slowly.

Well, that was not to be. After the large flare on Friday the 14th the
solar flux declined for only one day. Then, like a boxer who got his
breath back the solar flux just kept on rising to above the 250 value.
This high value helped to keep the higher bands going trough the unsettled conditions of the past week.

During the week several fairly large solar flares occurred and it was
expected that the earth's magnetic field would receive a head on blow from
the effects from one of these on Friday.

Fortunately it was a glancing blow! At 09:00 SAST on Friday morning a jump
in Solar wind-speed was noted. The speed rose from 480 km/second to 540 km/second. This caused a bit of an upset in propagation, especially in the forenoon.

Today you can expect reasonable conditions with typical winter propagation.

Tomorrow the magnetic field should be active and may even reach minor storm conditions at times. It is expected that the HF bands above 20 MHz will be somewhat weak. Strange propagation does however happen during minor storm conditions.

From Tuesday the magnetic activity should decline slowly as the week progresses. Look for good propagation into central Africa, especially on twenty metres.


DIARY OF COMING EVENTS


The Sandton Amateur Radio Club will be holding their AGM at the NARC,
Radiokop on Saturday 5th August. The meeting begins at 14:30. All
welcome. Refreshments and snacks will be provided. Please RSVP to Rob
ZS6RAP at 011 708-1875 or 082 567-5649.

The Alberton Amateur Radio Club will hold a fleamarket or bootsale on 26
August 2000 at 08:00 in front of the Civic Center, Ring Rd East Alberton. Please book tables in advance with Koos ZS6JPY 082 461 2819. Refreshments
will be available. For more information visit our webpage at www.hometown.aol.com/zs6tdk

The SARL news service invites radio clubs to supply information for
inclusion in the Diary of Events as well as other items of interest to
radio amateurs. Email information to sarlnuus@mweb.co.za with a copy to gth@mweb.co.za at least two weeks before the event. Please submit it in
both Afrikaans and English wherever possible.

The South African Radio League provides this news bulletin as a service to Radio Amateurs and interested listeners on the African Continent. News in
this bulletin was supplied by the SARL news service, individuals, and
amateur radio clubs in South Africa.

Also join us on Sundays at 12:00 for the President's Net on 7082 kHz. This bulletin was compiled by Marten, ZS6ZY and read by.........

A reminder that the interesting program Amateur Radio Mirror International
is on the air on Sundays at 10:00 SAST on 9750 and 21560 kHz and is
repeated on Mondays at 20:00 SAST on 3215 kHz. These transmissions are sponsored by Sentech, the common carrier for broadcasting signals in South Africa and Telkom who provides the transmission lines. The following VHF frequencies are also used: 145,375 for the Northern Free State and Vaal triangle areas, 145,650 MHz for the greater Durban area and if conditions permit in Pretoria on 145,750 MHz. The 145,400 and 439,100 MHz frequencies have temporarily been suspended for technical reasons. .

The address for Amateur Radio Mirror International is armi@intekom.co.za. Include your contact telephone number to allow the producers of the
programme to call you for a possible interview. Send written reports to P
O Box 90438, Garsfontein, 0042 and include a self addressed stamped
envelope, overseas stations two IRC's, so that you may receive a QSL card. Please note the new postal address.

Thanks to all who gathered news items and have made contributions to this bulletin. We thank all the stations who so reliably relay the bulletins.
We wish you a pleasant week. ZS6SRL now closes down with ZS6... at
the microphone.

Goodbye 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)