CTARC: International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend: 19/20 August

 THIS WEEKEND!  

The CTARC is preparing for the International Lightship and Lighthouse weekend.

 

REMEMBER There is NO monthly meeting this month, however, there will be a Fox Hunt on 26 August, details to follow:

 

Once again we have arranged to man the Green Point lighthouse from the Saturday morning of 19 August until mid-day Sunday of 20 August. We have repeated this so often now that our Lighthouse team manages to do the set-up and take-down with military precision but we still need manpower from our members, especially around 10:00 on Saturday morning in order to get our beam antenna raised.

 

Even if you are not taking part in the Lighthouse weekend, it would be appreciated if club members could come and assist with the set up at Green Point on Saturday morning 19 August 10h00 and for take down on Sunday, 20^th  at 11h00. (Committee members will meet at the clubhouse at 08h30 on Saturday morning to load antennas and equipment).

 

We will be having our very popular and always well attended Sunset Bring ‘n Braai on the Saturday evening (weather permitting) so even if you are not planning to operate, please join us and bring the XYL along for this social event. Fires will be lit at 5pm. Please bring your meat, rolls and salads, refreshments etc; to the braai.

 

We need operators for the event so please pop in and grab a mike or key and make a few contacts with us, it’s always great fun. This should be especially interesting for some of our new hams to make some international SSB contacts.

 

If you are planning on staying over (the more the merrier,) then please do let me know soonest and John can arrange enough room for us all. We already have some members staying over this year, which is great news.

 

See you there.

CTARC International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend Report - 22 Aug '21

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre set up a station at its traditional Green Point Lighthouse venue for the 2021 ILLW event, from Saturday 19th to Sunday 20th August 2021.

Owing to the Coronavirus safety restrictions, our club wasn't able to use the actual Lighthouse or associated buildings this year as we usually do. No mains power plus the temporary loss of access to the large room and lighthouse tower we usually enjoy there made setting up a multi-rig, multi-band, multi-antenna HF station too cumbersome to do this year. However, none of these limitations prevented Chris ZS1CDG from setting up a field station at the venue to make contacts through the QO-100 geostationary satellite. Strict Covid precautions were maintained throughout the event.

A resounding success! The event was attended throughout the weekend by numerous radio amateurs as well as members of the public, who were curious to see radio hams making many international contacts via the satellite. As ever, it was a great opportunity to promote both our club and the hobby to many visitors. It was also a lot of fun!

Among those present were Chris ZS1CDG, John ZS1EQ, Graeme ZS1GAK, Fred ZS1FZ, Stan ZS1HC, ZS1KU, Lem ZS1LEM, Celso ZS1MYG, Peter ZS1PC, James ZS1RBT, Paul ZS1S, Rob ZS1SA (CTARC chairman) & Anne, Tony ZS1TK, Phil ZS1WW, Bryce ZU1BM, Kiara ZU1ISS and ZU1KAT. We were also delighted to see Syd ZS5AYC & Adele ZS5APT who had traveled down here from Natal.

A video of the CTARC ILLW event is [here].

Hats off to Chris ZS1CDG for setting up the event and thanks to all those who attended and operated the station. We look forward to the ILLW again next year where (oh, how we hope!) we will be able to run a full HF station again at Green Point Lighthouse.

A more comprehensive report and photos are in the September 2021 edition of Ragchew, the CTARC's newsletter .

CTARC International Lighthouse/Lightship Weekend - 21/22 Aug '21

Last year I was determined Covid-19 was not going to stop our club's unbroken 20-year odd record of running a station at Green point lighthouse for the ILLW event.

We set up a very basic 100 watt HF station with a vertical whip and made contact with a handful of 40m stations. This year I thought, even though the lighthouse is closed, we could set up a small station on Saturday21 August . Over the last year I have become more interested in the QO-100 geostationary satellite that is capable of communicating with stations from Brazil to Thailand.

I have a dish that we can set up in the front of the Lighthouse with both an uplink antenna and an LNB for the satellite downlink.  The station would probably require two operators as unfortunately I find The LNB can drift a little bit as it is not synchronised to GPS however it is perfectly usable and a lot of fun.  It would be really good if we could cause some havoc on the satellite for a few hours from midday as I think we will be very popular on the satellite as not many stations will have a chance to communicate with a lighthouse station - pile up conditions! If you would like to operate the station you're more than welcome to.

I think I will sort everything out from about 11h30 a.m. with the aim to start transmission at about midday. ZS1S Paul will help with the battery and if anyone has a gazebo it might be a good idea to bring with them so that we can avoid the sun. Additionally if you'd like to set up a HF station alongside the QO 100 station you're more than welcome to and they may even investigate using DMR as well with the club's callsign so there's plenty of opportunity to do some operating if you so wish.

My only request is that if you do want to operate the satellite station please bring a second pair of headphones with a 3.5 mm jack so that I can tune the RX whilst you operate the satellite. For those that don't know, making contact with satellites it is traditional to give a grid square locator as well as RS report and additionally the reference for the Lighthouse which is Zulu Alpha 006.

There is no need to be nervous when operating the satellite as I will guide you with the correct procedure - I’ll write all this on a sheet of paper in front of you so you won’t forget.  This would be a wonderful opportunity for RAE candidates to explore another side of amateur radio.

If you cannot make the event you can listen to us live by following the website below.

https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/

73

Chris ZS1CDG

______________________________________________________________________

NB: This event has now taken place. A brief report is [here] and a more complete one will appear in our Ragchew newsletter of September 2021.

CTARC QO100 Satellite Frequency Calculator

Our Remote Station at Morningstar has a UHF transceiver and dish antenna that can reach the QO100 geostationary ham satellite, enabling QSOs with many hams worldwide who also can reach it.

Peter ZS1PT has devised a handy calculator spreadsheet to work out where to transmit on the QO100 transponder input and where it will output on the other frequency. He has kindly made it available to the CTARC. Thank you, Peter!

Download the spreadsheet [here].

The file is also available on the CTARC Website's Downloads Page.

CTARC Morningstar's QO-100 Satellite Station - 2 May '20

A dish antenna to work the Es-hail 2 /  QO-100 geostationary satellite has recently set up at the CTARC's remote station at Morningstar. This amazing feature has been discovered by many of our club members, enabling them to work transcontinental DX via satellite. If you are a licensed radio amateur, you can too!

To gain access to this great feature, you need to be a CTARC member [details here] and have also taken out the annual subscription to access the Morningstar Remote Station. However, those with access to Morningstar get free access to the QO-100 Satellite transceiver as well.

Working the Satellite has a learning curve - you need to be able to ensure that activating QO-100's linear transponder doesn't transmit downlink signal on the wrong frequency! Therefore all those members with Morningstar access who would like to also us the QO-100 feature need to contact the CTARC Secretary [here] to register. She will then send you links to an instructional PDF by Tjerk ZS1J and video by Chris ZS1CDG that explain how the system works.

CTARC Ragchew - Mar - April '20

The March / April 2020 edition of the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre's bi-monthly newsletter "Ragchew" is now published.

This edition is a bumper one, with three separate PDF files:

• The CTARC Newsletter "Ragchew", edited by Anne;
  
• A supplement on Operating the Morningstar Remote-Controlled Station, by Tjerk ZS1J, with Alan ZS1LS contributing;
  
• Another supplement on Operating the QO-100 Satellite via the CTARC's Morningstar station, by Tjerk ZS1J, comissioned and mentored by Fred ZS1FZ and Alan ZS1LS, as well!

Very grateful thanks once to our editor, Anne, for all her excellent work in putting together this month's bumper edition, and to all the other contributers.

Remember please, Anne is always on the look-out for articles to publish in Ragchew!

You can advertise ham-related items - for sale, swop or wanted-to-buy - in Ragchew, including colour photos, details and prices. To do so, please contact the editor [here].

Download the March / April 2020 Newsletter PDF file [here];

Download the Operating the Morningstar Remote-Controlled Station PDF file [here];

Download the Operating the QO-100 Satellite PDF file [here]

Ragchew is also on our Newsletters Page

CTARC Homebrew VHF/UHF Moxon Antenna - Oct '19

Here is a link to what looks like a most interesting VHF/UHF Moxon Satellite beam antenna, described by PY4ZBZ:

https://www.qsl.net/py4zbz/antenas/ms.htm

The web page is not in English, however the dimensions are construction are straightforward and should be easily interpreted.

OM Lem ZS1LEM  built the version with 5 UHF elements and 2 VHF elements.

The components include:

• 3.2 mm aluminum welding rods are available from any welding supplier (Afrox etc).
• A piece of PVC pipe;
• A 3.2mm drill bit,
• A piece of RG-58 coax, and
• A coax plug.

It looks like an easy build.

Many thanks to OM Lem ZS1LEM for passing on the link, and obrigado to PY4ZBZ and PQ2HX for publishing the information online.

Photo copyright Hermes PQ2HX

CTARC Forthcoming March Meeting - 23 Mar '19

The CTARC will hold their March monthly meeting on Saturday 23 March 2019 at 14h00 at the usual clubhouse venue in Rondebosch.

Usually we don't hold another meeting in March because the annual flea market, which traditionally is held on the first Saturday of that month, is enough to occupy us for a while thereafter!

However, Tom ZS1TA has kindly agreed to give a talk on Amateur Radio and Satellites on the abovementioned date. Tom is well known in radio ham circles and recently distinguished himself by holding the first QSO on two metres between South Africa and St Helena Island. He was also featured on a recent SARL bulletin, making contact with the same station via satellite.

An exciting new development for radio hams is the geostationary Es’hail-2 satellite, launched in November last year. It carries amateur radio transponders and is now in a geostationary orbit at 25.9° East. These are the first amateur radio transponders to be put into geostationary orbit, and the coverage  is expected to link radio amateurs from Brazil to the West of us to Thailand in the East. South African hams have already started making international contacts through this bird.

It promises to be a most interesting topic. See you at the meeting. Come early to ensure your seat!

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NB This event has now taken place. Read the report [here].

CTARC Photos of May 2018 Meeting - 28 May '18

Here are the photos of Deon ZR1DE's talk at the CTARC on 26 May 2018. We will try and get Deon's Powerpoint slides later, which are far better than my photos of slides projected on a wall!
The text report-back is [here].

A great turnout for the meeting, representing all ages in our growing club

Rob ZS1SA opens the meeting and gives feedback on the
committee meeting

Deon ZR1DE commences his oresentation and mentions
the AMSAT SA Space Symposium

Polar and Equatorial orbits

Ground tracks help predict when and where the satellite is visible

The deployment pod that launches sets of CubeSats

The primary satellite that carries the launching pod/s

SDR Dongles have revolutionised inexpensive monitoring,
of HF through to UHF frequencies

Satellite data summarised in a graph

Data analysed by Fast Fourier Transform

Data from a single orbit. This graph shows current generated
by the satellite's photovoltaic cells

Cumulative data summarised from 4 years' worth of orbital data

Non-sun synchronous orbits affect the data collected

Deon responded to numerous questions from the audience

Ian ZS1SX examines a CubeSat frame at first hand. Note the deployable
antennas poking out the sides

After the meeting, Chris ZS1CDG shows off the foxhunting fox
he's constructing

Ever helpful, Peter ZS1PGC (centre) tests a VHF/UHF antenna for Paul ZS1S (right) with his antenna analyser.
Raising the yagi off the ground later delivered better readings.

CTARC Forthcoming May Meeting - 26 May '18

Deon Coetzee / ZR1DE
with prototype space frame.
Image Credit SA AMSAT

The monthly CTARC meeting for May 2018 will be held at the clubhouse on Saturday 26 May 2018, starting at 14h00.

The speaker for this meeting will be Deon Coetzee / ZR1DE, with a talk on the SA AMSAT radio amateur satellite projects and the FunCube SDR.

Deon's enthusiastic involvement in this field over the years is well known and he is an established authority on the subject, and it promises to be a most interesting talk indeed.

Please note that this topic / speaker replaces previous notifications for the 26 May 2018 meeting. We do apologise for any confusion that might have been caused.

Details of our forthcoming meetings are usually announced on our Sunday morning CTARC bulletins on the 145.750 MHz repeater, in our newsletter "Ragchew" and on this blogspot.

Note: This meeting has now taken place. The report-back is [here].