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Celebrate Youth Day on 16 June with Amateur
Radio
One
of the main objectives of the South African Amateur Radio Development
Trust is to promote Amateur Radio and to support the South African Radio
League in its quest to introduce the science of Amateur Radio to the
young people of Africa and in particular to the young people of
South Africa.
Youth Day 16 June 2009
YOUTH
DAY SPRINT TO GET THE YOUTH TALKING
The Youth Sprint on 16 June 2009 is aimed at getting the youth talking
to each other, but you can be the catalyst to make it happen.
The event will run
for two hours from 10:00 to 12:00 CAT on the 40 metre band.
The exchange is an
RS report and the operator's age.
Set up a station in
a public place or invite some young people into the shack.
Scoring:
Contact between two
stations 25 years and under 5 points
Contact operators
where one operator 2 points
26 Years or older
Contact between 2
stations where both
operators are older than 26 years
1 point
AWARDS
Under 25 Category:
Highest Score

A certificate and a
ARRL Operating Manual
Second Place
A
certificate and a
40m DC receiver kit
Third Place

A certificate and
lightning predictor kit
All participant 25
years and younger who have submitted a log will receive a full colour
certificate and take part in the lucky prize draw for wireless
microphone kit (5 chances)
PHOTOGRAPHS
All
participants who submit a high resolution picture with their log will go
into a separate lucky draw for a 2009 ARRL handbook.
The photograph(s) must be in jpeg format and submitted on a CD or
mailed separate from the log to
armi@sarl.org.za with the callsign and Youth Sprint in the subject
line. In the message part name, callsign of the person in the pic, age
and full address details.
STATIONS HOSTING
UNLICENSED YOUTH
Invite a young
person into your shack and allow him/her to operate during the youth
sprint under your guidance. The callsign to be used is yours. Help him/her to submit a log.
The log must include the persons name and age as well as your callsign.
This is important to qualify for the draw
All stations
participating in this category will go into the lucky draw for one year
free membership of the SARL.
By submitting a log
you are automatically registered as an education stations
operating as part of the Youth Sprint. This has been agreed with ICASA.
No paperwork required.
.All logs must
reach the contest Manager by not later than 1 July 2009. Email logs to
hfcontests@netactive.co.za or by mail to SARL Youth Day Sprint, PO
Box 12104, Brandhof, 9324
Logs:
Click here for the log sheet
to be used
GET A BURSARY TO STUDY AMATEUR
RADIO
The South African Amateur
Radio Development Trust has announced details of it YARP 2009 bursary
scheme. YARP is the acronym for Youth For Amateur Radio Programme.
Bursaries are available for both the entry level license and the full
licence.
For both license classes
the bursary will cover the lecture, examination and first year license
fees and a printed copy of the SARL course material.
Upon the completion of the
course and the passing of the theory and practical examination, the
Trust will sponsor a year’s membership of the SARL.
Application must be made on
the prescribed form available HERE
JUST LICENSED AND NO RIG YET? GET ON THE AIR WITH ECHOLINK
Talk for free!
So you have just received your new ZU, or ZR or ZS callsign and you
can’t wait to make amateur radio contacts …. You can’t because you have
no equipment as yet. Echolink can end your frustration within a
few minutes. After reading this article you could be accessing any of
the 2000 repeaters linked to the system and work some DX.
For licensed hams, EchoLink® software opens up new
possibilities for communicating around the world with other amateurs.
Your PC links you to any of thousands of other stations over the
Internet. There are more than 170,000 registered users in 158 nations
worldwide!
As a newcomer to amateur radio all you need is a PC, a microphone,
speakers and an Internet connection. A dial-up will work but a broadband
connection will deliver better quality.
How to get connected?
First you need to download the Echolink software. EchoLink®
software is offered free of charge to licensed Amateur Radio operators
worldwide, for Amateur Radio use only. Please note that you must
hold a valid Amateur Radio license in order to use EchoLink. After
installing the program, you must provide proof of license if you wish to
use it.
Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD, developed EchoLink in early 2002. In an
astonishingly short period of time, EchoLink has become one of the
dominant Amateur Radio VoIP systems. The free EchoLink software for
Windows can be downloaded at
www.echolink.org.
When you start the EchoLink software, your computer taps the Internet to
connect to an EchoLink server. Before you can make your first connection
to the network, your call sign must be verified. . This can take minutes
or hours, depending on the state of the system, but it helps reduce the
chances of non-hams entering the EchoLink network.
Once you’re validated (you only do this once), the rest is easy. The
EchoLink server acts like a telephone switchboard in cyberspace. It
maintains a directory of everyone who is connected at any moment. After
browsing the directory, you can request a connection between your
computer and that of another amateur.
Here’s where it becomes interesting. The amateur on the EchoLink receiving
end may be sitting in front of his computer with a headset and
microphone. Or he may have his computer connected to a base radio at his
station that is acting as an RF relay to a handheld transceiver or
mobile rig. Or the destination station may be part of a repeater system.
In any case, once the connection is established, anything you say will
wind up being heard in the other amateur’s headset, or transmitted over
the air.
At your end of the EchoLink connection, you may be the one wearing the
headset, or using a simplex connection to your base radio, or using a
repeater. When you connect to an individual station, the custom is to
call in the same fashion as you would during a traditional on-air
conversation: “ZS6ABC from ZU1XYZ.” Or if you are connecting to a
distant repeater system: “ZU1XYZ, Pretoria, South Africa, (You need to
hesitate about 2 seconds before speaking to compensate for the delay.)
The EchoLink servers also support conferencing where several
amateurs can converse in a roundtable fashion. There are even EchoLink
nets that meet within these conference areas on a scheduled basis.
EchoLink Setup
To run EchoLink you’ll need a PC with Windows 98/2000/XP and a
sound card. The software is easy to set up. A “wizard” function guides
you through each step.
If you want to enjoy EchoLink conversations while sitting at your
computer, you will need a microphone headset. These are commonly
available from computer shops. The microphone plug attaches to the
microphone input jack of your sound card and the headphone plug
typically attaches to the SPEAKER OUT jack. In addition to setting up
the EchoLink software, you may also need to adjust your sound card
VOLUME and RECORDING control settings in Windows.
If you are using a wireless router you may not be able to connect to
Echolink without changing some of the settings.
EchoLink requires that your router or
firewall allow inbound and outbound UDP to destination ports 5198 and
5199, and outbound TCP to port 5200. Source ports are dynamically
assigned. If you are using a home-network router, you will also
need to configure the router to "forward" UDP ports 5198 and 5199 to the
PC on which EchoLink is running.
The
EchoLink website,
www.echolink.org includes many
help files and a FAQ that will assist you in setting up.
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