CTARC Forthcoming Meeting - 23 Oct '21

The October 2021 meeting of the Cape Town Amateur Radio Society will take place at the clubhouse on Saturday, 23rd October at 14h00.

The main topic of the meeting will be a talk and demonstration by Dirk ZS1X on Digital Mobile Radio. This new digital feature of our hobby enables licensed radio amateurs to talk worldwide with other radio hams via DMR-enabled repeaters and base station radios. Relatively inexpensive DMR radios are now becoming available. As such this adds a very exciting feature to our available options.

There will also be the usual Swop Shop where amateur radio-related items may be bought, sold and swapped. As ever, should any items you bring along not be sold, please take them home afterwards as there is no room in the clubhouse to keep them there!

As we are all still under Covid regulations, the meeting will be held outside the clubhouse on the lawns. The usual precautions of social distancing, masks and hand sanitising will apply.

At the recent Committee meeting it was decided that, should the weather be unkind to us, the meeting will be held in the hall adjoining the clubhouse.

We look forward to seeing you there!

CTARC Report on August Monthly Meeting - 28 Aug '21

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre held it's August 2021 meeting on-line, starting a 14h00, on Saturday, 28th August 2021. We were treated to a marvelous presentation about South Africa's Radar activities in the Second World War.

At the outbreak of hostilities, the potential threat of invasion from the Axis forces, as well as U-boat attacks on shipping off the coast of Southern Africa were of great concern to the military authorities. Fortunately, there were two great assets at the Allies' disposal. The first was the invention and development of Radar in Britain. 

The second asset was in the person of Sir Basil Schonland (1896 - 1972), a significant figure in our military and scientific history and clearly a brilliant man. Born in Grahamstown, Schonland matriculated (aged just 14) from St Andrew's College as the top pupil in the then Cape Province. His studies took him to Rhodes University, and then to Cambridge University in England. His tertiary studies were interrupted by the First World War where, in the Signal Services of the Royal Engineers, he served in the British Army from 1915 to 1918. He was wounded at Arras, mentioned in despatches and awarded the OBE.

After the war he returned to study Physics at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. In 1922, he returned to South Africa and lectured at UCT, later becoming Professor of Physics there. In 1937 he moved to Johannesburg to direct the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysics at Witwatersrand University.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, now with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, Schonland was in charge of the South African Special Signals Services and led the development of South Africa's own Radar system. In 1941 he went to England to acquire more equipment for South Africa and became superintendent of the Army Operational Research Group of the Air Defence Research and Development Establishment (AORG) between 1941 and 1944. Under his leadership the Research Group made significant contributions to the war effort, particularly in Radar used by the army. By 1944 he was  scientific adviser to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. By the war's end he held the rank of Brigadier. 

Post-WW2, Schonland returned to South Africa to continue as director of the Bernard Price Institute at Wits. On the request of Jan Smuts, he established the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. In 1954 he became deputy director and then director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell in the UK. He was knighted by the Queen for his services to Science in 1960.

(Portions of the above attributed to Wikipedia)

(Above map from publication by Brian Austin ZS6BKW)

The presentation, by Allan ZS1AL and Professor Mike Inggs, was most interesting. We were treated to photos, maps and descriptions of the development of South African Radar and the activities of the SA Special Signals Service. The system had two main functions - firstly, that of ocean surface surveillance and secondly, the coordination and ranging of the heavy artillery sited primarily to protect Simonstown and Cape Town harbours from attack.

Of particular interest to us in Cape Town were the descriptions of the facilities positioned around the Cape Peninsula and Cape Hangklip, as well as maps of Radar coverage around the coast at the time.

On a personal note, I was moved by the film clips (some even in colour) of the personnel who developed and operated the radar system during their period of deployment, including the many female operators who tirelessly sat at their stations for long hours under conditions that could be kindly described as spartan. One of them may have been my Auntie Pam. Such was the great secrecy surrounding the entire project that we only learned of her involvement in the Special Signals Service long after she had passed on...

The meeting ended at around 15h45. Grateful thanks to Allan, Professor Inggs and all who attended the on-line meeting. A truly memorable presentation indeed!

Allan has kindly indicated he has more videos of the above topic and we will post links to them here shortly.

Nick ZS1ZD

CTARC Forthcoming Meeting - 28 Aug '2021

The August meeting for the CTARC will take place on Saturday, 28th August 2021 at 14h00. Owing to the current Coronavirus restrictions, it will be an on-line meeting.

Alan ZS1AL will present a talk on South Africa's involvement with Radar during WW2, which promises to be very interesting indeed. There are still a number of old Radar sites dotted around the Cape Peninsula and beyond. Sadly, some of these are now derelict and efforts to preserve their history must be made.

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This event has now taken place. A brief report is [here] and will appear in the CTARC Ragchew newsletter.

CTARC Forthcoming Meeting - 26 Jun '21

Due to the Coronavirus lockdown restrictions, for the safety of our club members the CTARC has decided to hold our June 2021 meeting in virtual (on-line) format.

Fortunately, a fascinating illustrated presentation has been arranged by kind courtesy of OM Alan ZS1AL. Rear Admiral (JG) Andre Rudman (Retired) has most kindly agreed to present to our members:

The Mystery of the SS Waratah

117 Years of Speculation Have Possibly Been Solved

Admiral Rudman has 40 years of esteemed Naval Experience on which, through diligent and copious investigation, he will provide us with a most plausible alternative solution to the resting place of one of history's most talked-about and elusive vessels.

The presentation will review the facts of the well-know story of the Waratah's disappearance, give and overview of some of the people who spent their lives and fortunes looking for the ship, and there might even be a sting in the tail with new information never before published!

Sadly, Covid Regulations require that this has to be an on-line presentation and the CTARC will only be able to accommodate 75 participants in the session.

The meeting takes place at 14h00 on 26 June 2021. Log in at 13h50.

So: for those members who are interested and have the ability to participate either on their computer of mobile smart phones, please let our club secretary Anne know BY EMAIL as soon as possible, that we may be able to attend to the necessary preparations.

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This meeting has now taken place. A report on it is published in the 2021 July edition of Ragchew..

CTARC Forthcoming January Meeting - 27 Jan '18

Barry / ZS1FJ

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre kicks off the new year with its first meeting of 2018, on Saturday 27 January at the clubhouse, starting at 14h00.

At this meeting, Barry / ZS1FJ (whom we all know as a seasoned globetrotter and DX-peditioneer of note) will give a talk on the building of simple HF antennae.

Barry's extensive field experience in erecting and using DX antennae at various remote locations ensures that this talk will be most interesting, and backed up with his hands-on knowledge of what works well in practice.

As our club continues to grow, we now begin to face the prospect of having more members than available chairs... Them what arrives early is them what gets the seats! We do look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

CTARC Report-back on October Meeting - 23 Oct '17

On Saturday, 28 October 2017 saw the CTARC holding its monthly meeting, which was well attended, at the Rondebosch clubhouse

Those who arrived early, for the 13h30 new .hams session attended an interesting talk / discussion held by Noel / ZS1FW on the topic of Ham jargon, which was most interesting.
Then, with the main event at 14h00, we were treated to a surprise double bill.

Rob called the meeting to order, and we first held a moment of silence to remember Hugo / ZS1HSF, who passed away in mid-September. We had heard of his passing at the September meeting, but hadn’t had time to formally acknowledge him, other than on air,  until our October meeting.

Then Rob have a report back on the recent committee meeting and various projects which are in progress. The antenna mast repairs are ongoing.

Rob then welcomed Gerald / ZS1GRM (a long-standing member of CTARC) to deliver a brief talk about a fine 2m antenna he has constructed. (For those who don’t know it, Gerald isn’t shy about the scale of projects he takes on. He built a gyrocopter in his garage. Not a model, but a real, full-sized working one, beautifully made. So we all pay attention when Gerald describes the construction of his projects.) His antenna, Called the “besemstock special”, uses a broomstick as the boom. Gerald built this compact 5-element  yagi with two cross-phase driven folded dipole elements, on a design first published  by Frank Judd of the UK. It has a gain of 10 dBd, and it has accompanied Gerald on several DX-peditions, where it has performed very well.

Gerald also showed us his “bazooka balun”, consisting of a quarter-wave stub of copper sleeving around a coaxial feedline.  It is a concept so simple to construct  that Gerald wonders why it is not in more common usage these days.

We then went on to the main topic of the meeting, which was a talk and PowerPoint presentation by Paul / ZS1S, on his recent trip to Friedrichshafen hamfest, near Stuttgart in Germany. This annual gathering of hams is certainly the largest in Germany, probably the largest in Europe, and on a par with other international ham gatherings such as the Daytona Hamfest in the USA.

As a guest of fellow club member Fred / ZS1FZ, Paul was able to visit this amazing event. The sheer scale of the Friedrichshafen event was conveyed to us by Paul's many interesting photos. Hall upon hall of radio ham gear and exhibitions were there for the browsing, including stalls with the latest rigs from the big manufacturers. Many of the big names in the ham equipment and DX scene were present. There were even link ups with a (small, but significant) number of ZS hams there too! A wide variety of ham radio organisations were also represented. You could even buy raffle tickets where you could win a high-end Elecraft rig or linear amplifier!

After the hamfest, Paul was (by kind courtesy of ZS1FZ) able to do a bit of sight-seeing in central Europe (Including a round trip through Germany, Switzerland, Lichtenstein and Austria - all in one afternoon!). His photos illustrated to us the thoroughly integrated and highly functional aspect of central Europe, particularly Germany. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip and Paul received a well-deserved round of applause at the conclusion of his talk.

Finally it was Rob’s pleasant task to hand over the Buck Taylor trophy, our club’s highest award, to Fred / ZS1FZ, who was there in person to receive it for the first time since it had been awarded to him at our AGM in July, while he was overseas. We’re very glad to welcome Fred back to our midst. It was also good to see Dennis / ZS1AU and Richard / ZS1RIC, both of whom have suffered very sad losses of late, at the meeting.

Afterwards we had the usual chewing of the rag, skinner, eyeball QSO's, discussions and riffling through the numerous and varied items brought to the the swop shop. So, a thoroughly good meeting, once again. Thanks to Rob, Gerald, Paul and all who attended.

Photos are here: Page 1  Page 2.

Our next main members' meeting at the clubhouse (and the final CTARC monthly meeting of the year) will be the End-of-Year braai on Saturday 25 November. More details to be announced on the bulletins, in Ragchew and here on this blogspot.

CTARC Forthcoming New Hams Presentation - 24 Jun '17

The CTARC committee has received several requests for presentations intended to assist new radio hams to get to grips with aspects of our hobby. Our first session will take place this coming Saturday 24th June beginning at 13h00, an hour ahead of the regularly scheduled meeting, at the CTARC clubhouse. 

All new / recently qualified radio amateurs are warmly encouraged to attend.

Our first session, conducted by Rob / ZS1SA, will be on the subject of VHF Operating Protocol

The syllabus will be:

• ·        How to correctly establish contact on VHF FM repeaters & simplex channels;
• ·        Round-table radio net procedures;
• ·        Allowing breaks between overs;
• ·        Proper microphone technique;
• ·        Correct station identification;
• ·        Use of the Proword “Break”;
• ·        Repeater and Simplex Frequencies;
• ·        CTCSS.

(Note, this meeting has taken place. The Report-back is [here].)