SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE
SARL NEWS SUNDAY DECEMBER 24 2000

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.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to a yet unsolved program problem encountered very late when compiling
the English version of this bulletin the bulletin is not as complete as it
was intended to be. My sincere apologies. I trust that next week I will
not be beset by the same problem.

SILENT KEYS

Raymond Holbert, ZS6WP, from Linmeyer passed away on the 21 st December
after a long illness. Raymond was very active in recruiting new hams.

Nick Jordaan, ZS6APW passed away recently. Nick was inactive as radio ham
for the past 15 years.

Sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of these silent keys.

Here are the headlines of today's news:

SARL MEMBERSHIP REVERSE AGM DECISION

NOMINATIONS FOR COUNCIL

MOTIONS FOR THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

AO 40 STILL REMAINS SILENT

NOMINATIONS FOR AWARDS CALLED FOR

ENTRIES FOR THE TINUS LANGE AWARDS INVITED

PROPAGATION FORECAST

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

SARL MEMBERSHIP REVERSE AGM DECISION

In the recent postal ballot SARL members overturned a previous AGM decision that the Annual General Meeting should always be held in the Gauteng Area. There were 260 votes in favour of the proposal by Council and only 25 votes against the proposal.

Council recently suggested that AGM's should rotate to various centres of
South Africa to give many more members an opportunity to attend and
participate in AGM activities..

Council is now inviting clubs to submit proposals for hosting the AGM and
the annual prize giving function. The date for the AGM is Saturday 28 April 2001 which is over a long weekend with Friday 27 April being Freedom day.
The proposal should be in great detail and include a full programme and costing. The core time for the meeting itself is from 08:00 to 13:00. The club organising the AGM will be responsible for all costs except the travel costs of Councillors the SARL has budgeted for.

Proposals should be sent by Email to: sarl@intekom.co.za before 15 January 2000. Council at its meeting on 20 January will review all the proposals
and inform the club whose proposal is accepted on the same day.

NOMINATIONS FOR COUNCIL

There are currently 5 vacancies on Council and nominations are invited from members of the SARL to fill these vacancies. Should more than 5 nominations
be received a ballot will be held.

Each nomination must contain the following:

1. Full names, callsign and address of nominee.
2. An amateur radio related CV of not more than 200 words.
3. A signed declaration by the nominee that he/she will accept nomination
and serve on the Council of the SARL if elected.
4. Each nomination must be signed by a proposer and seconder.
5. Only fully paid-up members of the SARL may be nominated, propose and
second a nomination.

The nominations must reach the National Amateur Radio Centre by no later
than 31 January 2001.

MOTIONS FOR THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Motions for submission and consideration at the Annual General Meeting of
the SARL which is to take place on the 28 April 2001 are invited from
members.

Each motion must contain the following:

1. A concise description of the motion.
2. A motivation in support of the motion.
3. Each motion must have a proposer and a seconder.

The motions must reach the National Amateur Radio Centre by not later than
31 January 2001.

AMSAT OSCAR-40 STILL SILENT

AMSAT OSCAR-40 remains silent, and command stations on the ground still have been unable to reestablish contact with the Amateur Radio satellite. It was hoped that onboard computer timeouts--so- called "command-assist" software watchdog routines--would restart the beacon telemetry and give the ground
crew some clues as to why AO-40 suddenly stopped transmitting on December
13. That did not happen.

80 m QSO PARTY RESULTS CORRECTION

The news item received for inclusion in last week=92s bulletin stated ZS5VER
as the winner. In fact there is no ZS5VER and the honour goes to Rudi, then ZS6VER, now ZS6DX. Sarlnuus was unaware of the error in the news item.

GREET THE WORLD AT THE TURN OF THE REAL MILLENNIUM

At five minutes past midnight on 1 January 2001 the SARL will be holding a Millennium net on 3718 kHz. Join Laurie Devereux ZS5DL and many other new
year revellers on the air to welcome the new year and to share good wishes across the length and breadth of South Africa and beyond our borders.

SEASON GREETINGS

The President and Council of the SARL wish all listeners a blessed Christmas and a prosperous and successful New Year. To our Moslem listeners we extend best wishes for Eid-ul-Fitr celebrating the end of the holy month of
Ramadaan on December 27.

PROPAGATION CONDITIONS

Ean Retief, ZS1PR, reports as follows:

Propagation was fair during the past week, but signals were not as strong as expected.

Thursday afternoon the magnetic polarity of the interplanetary magnetic
field turned southward. A southward polarity always couple much better with the earth's magnetic field.

From 14:00 to 19:00 the propagation between Southern Africa and Europe and Middle-East was very poor. Recovery was very rapid and by 19:15 strong
signals were again being received from central Europe.

Friday at 20:30 the polarity again turned southward and by Saturday morning minor storm conditions were being reported from North America with beautiful Aurora (Northern lights).

The geomagnetic activity is being helped along by a small coronal hole on
the sun that is aimed directly at the earth. This should cause the
geomagnetic effects to continue until about Wednesday.

The good news however is that the solar flux should remain near 190 until
about Wednesday, then it should decline rapidly to about 150 by New Year's
day.

It is expected that the Maximum Usable Frequencies should be about 10% above the predicted monthly values for today and tomorrow.

The 30 metre band should be very good on inland routes, while you can expect good DX propagation at night on the 40 metre band in the westward direction.

EVENTS AND DATES TO REMEMBER


Milennium greetings get together 5 minutes past midnight 31 December/1
January on 3718 kHz with Laurie Devereux, ZS5DL;

Submission of proposals for AGM venue by 15 January;

Re-opening of SARL Head Office 17 January;

Nominations for Councillors 31 January;

Motions for AGM 31 January;

Tinus Lange awards 15 February;

SARL awards 20 February.

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, especially clubs, to this bulletin and all
stations who so reliably relay these bulletins. This bulletin was compiled
by George, ZS6NE, and read by ZS.... in.......

You have been listening to ZS6SRL.

This transmission now ends and we wish you a pleasant week.

/ex--------------------------------------------------
Internet feed from ZS6NE moved by Richard de ZR6CK

Regards,
Richard.

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