Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all our members and Radio Amateurs, both local and far a field.

Wishing you lots of new toys and contacts, from the MARC Committee

The ICASA accounts have been sent out.  The licence fees remain at R27pa.  Please make sure that you pay your account by 31 January 2009 to avoid interest accumulation,  If you have not received an account yet, you can still make the payment to:

ICASA, Bank: Nedbank, Type of account: Deposit Account, Branch #: 14624500, Account #: 1462002927, Reference #: Your licence number

NB - do not forget to quote your licence number

RADIO TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION 2009
Microchip PIC Course  

Learn how to work with Microchip PIC’s, how to programme them and use them in Amateur Radio projects 

A 4 hour course presented by John Williscroft ZS6EF . At the end of the course you will be able to work with PIC’s and programme them for other projects.

Durban: Saturday 21 February  2009
Durban Amateur Radio Centre
Registration closing date: 21 January 2009
Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 20 people

Fee includes

• Tuition

• Required software on a CD

• A demonstration board with a PIC

• A programmer to download your programs to the PIC*

• All  parts and light refreshments

FEES
Course Fee for SARL members          R200
Course fee for Non SARL Members     R300
USB programmer                               R235
Only required if no RS232 port is
available on your PC

HOW TO REGISTER

1.  Send an email to rta@sarl.org.za with the following details:
      in the email subject line  enter: PIC and the City
      - Your first name, surname, callsign (if any),
      - Cell number and home phone number
      - Postal address    

2. Transfer the required amount to the SARL account
     ABSA Account no 4071 588 849 Branch code 632 005

3. Email the deposit slip/bank confirmation to rta@sarl.org.za
     or fax to 088 011 675 2793

Once the above have been received will you  receive a confirmation.

Ensure that all your name details are correct  and as you would like to have on the MicroChip certificate you will receive at the end of the course.

TIMING

The course starts at 09:00 and will end at 14:00. Light refreshment will be provided

WHAT TO BRING TO THE COURSE

A CD is provided for you to take home. Only a notebook and pen are required  should you wish to take additional notes.

More info can be found here

New - each member (past and present) with an existing email address has been allocated a personalised email forwarder, where your email address is your
call-sign@marc.org.za.  This way you can email any club member with an existing email address, without needing the original email address - you just have to remember the call sign :-).

We can allocate full POP3 emails to members who do not have email addresses at the moment.  You will need an internet connection however to access these, and this can be done a number of ways, like connecting to the internet using your cell phone as a modem, connecting directly with your cell phone, using internet cafes etc.

Please contact the webmaster directly if you are interested and/or need more information (contact details are found in the "contact" link at the top of the page)

04 Jan - Robin Seal, ZS5MRS
11 Jan - Mickey Esterhuysen, ZS5QB
18 Jan - Mike Lauterbach, ZS5ML
25 Jan - Peter du Plessis, ZS5PJ
01 Feb - Errol Wilson, ZS5EGW
08 Feb - Mike Boast, ZS5BGV

We will try and post some of these bulletins here on the web, when and if they are available for publication.  They will be available on the downloads page

• A schedule for Southern African and some international contests can be found under the Contests link
• Submitted bulletins and other interesting talks are found on the Downloads page, under the HHN newsletters

Is your account with ICASA up to date?

Here is an extract from their site to address this matter.  Please click here to download the spreadsheet file to see if your name is on their "not paid" list (3.5MB)

You only had until 28 November 2008 to sort this out! 

New APRS maps of Namibia and Botswana have been uploaded to our map download section.  They ave been calibrated, and the calibration files are included in the compressed files.

This clubs members are mainly located in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands on the east coast of South Africa.

17 January 2009
Our monthly meeting will be at the new time of 11h00, with the committee meeting an hour earlier.

14/15 February 2009 
Proposed HF Camping weekend at Midmar Dam, with all KZN clubs invited.  This is planned to coincide with the SARL HF Field Day on these two days

Repeater maintenance
Work days will be scheduled for the for the Greytown and Estcourt repeaters.  the Greytown repeater needs to have it's radio replaced and new antennas and UHF link installed.
The Escourt repeater needs an antenna replacement.  both of these could be possibly done in one day.
There is a possibility of another work day to set up a repeater in the Harrismith area.

The uhf hub repeater at Gilboa was starting to become a bit scratchy again, after our initial temporary repair, using the original shortened pole which had snapped.  The good thing about this was that it ensured that the temporary repair did not become a permanent repair...

Shaun, ZR5S organised a work party for 27 December.  3 vehicles then converged on Mt Gilboa on Saturday morning: Stanley (ZR5SEM) with family, Shaun with his son, Errol (ZS5EGW) and Mickey (ZS5QB) in his vehicle, and Mike (ZS5ML) in his Land Rover. 

It was very windy and a bit chilly on top, and we immediately saw why the repeater was not operating too well - the lower transmit antenna had settled at 30 degrees off vertical.  Shaun had brought a sturdier cross beam and new U-bolts to sort this.

We then removed the old pole, inserted a sturdier galvanised pole with the new Diamond X200 on top, in place of the old X700, which was too long for the winds experienced here.

While we were busy, Shaun cleaned the battery terminals and connected the new battery protector, which will isolate the battery when it drops to below 10.5V, to ensure it's longevity.

Stanley's wife, Rachel, managed to get a fire going in the strong wind and braaied some sausage, and provided us wors rolls.  These went down extremely well - thanks Stanley and Rachel!

We eventually left the mountain Just after 15h00 after testing the radios and antennas.

Click here for more photos..

Epilogue:

On the following morning, when I switched on my radio to join the Sunday morning net, I noticed that the UHF link repeater was dead.  On checking the Gilboa telemetry on the internet, I saw that the power to the repeater had tripped at 01h00 on 28/12/08, probably due to lightning (we experienced thunderstorms and rain throughout the night). 

The APRS side was still working though, so we were confident that it was not a direct lightning strike.

Shaun then went up to Gilboa at midday.  The circuit breakers were tripped, including the one in the locked Vodacom DB board - hopefully they can restore it on Monday.  After Shaun removed and replaced the radio cards in the UHF repeater, it came back to life.

A special thanks to Shaun and family for sacrificing their Sunday to sort the repeater.  We can be grateful that the damage was not more serious

Projects in Progress

We have secured the site at Gilboa, and have set up a UHF Hub repeater, as well as an APRS repeater.  Special thanks go to Bob, ZS5CU who donated the aluminium box, and Bert, who supplied the mast base, and the rest of our gang, Shaun, instrumental in donating antennas and organising and programming the repeaters, Mike Boast,  Stanley and other Mike in providing hard labour in preparing the box, erecting the antenna and digging trenches for the electricity feed.

Progress is being made to link four of  MARC's Vhf repeaters to improve communications throughout the Midlands. The four repeaters include; Greytown, Estcourt, Underberg and Worlds-View.  So far, Estcourt and World's View have been linked, with the bonus of Gilboa providing fantastic linked UHF coverage, in the midlands, reaching parts of Durban, and even Lesotho, 150km away!

Vhf repeater upgrading has started. The Estcourt, Underberg, Hilton and Worlds-View repeaters have been brought up to commercial spec. Next in line is the Greytown repeater.

The club's PC has been upgraded to accommodate APRS, Packet and PSK31 software. This is an ideal way to introduce this fascinating mode to the clubs members/visitors. 

Voice coverage now extends from Harrismith to Cato Ridge, and when the Highway 600 repeater is linked, coverage will extend all the way along the N3 to Durban

Our sponsors, who make this site possible:
Shaun's TV:    TV repair workshop. Providing Echo-Link, E-QSO and the APRS I-Gate.
EdelNet and PmbNet:   Broadband solutions and networking.    Providing us with the domain name, web space and bandwidth.