Southgate Amateur Radio News

Amateur radio today is as relevant as it was 95 years ago
In a media statement about the SARL 95th anniversary, President Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL said, “Amateur Radio has withstood the test of time because it is based on three major guiding principles: Communication between people, continuous technological development and self-education and training”

Ten-year-old gets ham radio license
When ten-year-old Jacob Hoschar‘s school in Forks, Washington State, shut down due to Coronavirus he and his father Andrew Hoschar studied for their amateur radio exam and now have the call signs KJ7NZC and KJ7NXN

QSO Today Amateur Radio Podcast – Bob Fontana – AK3Y
Bob Fontana, AK3Y’s, ham radio and electronic career was a friend’s broken shortwave to AM downconverter

AMSAT announces 2020 Field Day rules
It’s that time of year again; summer and Field Day!
Each year the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) sponsors Field Day as a “picnic, a campout, practice for emergencies, an informal contest and, most of all, FUN!”
The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) promotes its own version of Field Day for operation via the amateur satellites, held concurrently with the ARRL event

AO-27 returns from the dead
A number of amateurs have reported that the FM repeater of AO-27 has been active for brief intervals in recent weeks

South African special event stations
There are two local special event stations you can look out for. ZS95SARL celebrates the 95th birthday of the SARL and ZS1820S celebrates the 200th anniversary of the landing of the 1820 Settlers 

Foundations of Amateur Radio
The antenna and coax you use matter
During the week I climbed on my roof and installed a base antenna for the 2m and 70cm band. The antenna is a Diamond X-300N. It’s 3 meters tall, has a gain of 6.5 dB on 2m and 9 dB on 70cm. I’ve owned it for just under eight years and this week I finally took it out of the box and installed it. I know, I know, in my defence, you shouldn’t rush these things  

QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo open Aug 8 and 9th
QSO Today podcaster, Eric, 4Z1UG, announces the first Virtual Ham Radio Expo scheduled to open August 8th and 9th

New product HAMKit VMAC ESP32
The new HAMKit VMAC ESP32 product, has just been released. This is a small but powerful board, driven by an ESP32, which provides a very flexible Audio and Video Switching Matrix, with on-board DTMF Decoder, OSD Graphics, Video Signal Detectors and Synchronous Bucks 

Ham radio YOTA Online
The Youth Working Group within IARU Region 1 has created a newly developed program called Youngsters On The Air (YOTA) Online

Spain’s URE makes June magazine PDF available
In response to the ongoing Coronvirus situation Spain’s national amateur radio society URE is allowing everyone to download the PDF of the June edition of their magazine Radioaficionados

Monthly performance of 8J17CALL for April-May
This is 7M4VQJ, Satoshi from 7-CALL Amateur Radio Club (JS1YEY), Tokyo based club station organized by Japanese 7-CALL amateurs

Propagation de K7RA
Still no sunspots to report. Spaceweather.com reported on May 20 that the current stretch of days with no sunspots has now reached 18. And with that the 2020 percentage of days with no sunspots has risen to 77%, equal to 2019. Until May 15 that statistic stood at 76%