Focus on VHF and Above 8 June 2025 

Audio version

Another Pico Balloon has been launched on Saturday 7 June 2025 by the BACAR team in Secunda. There was a bit of a rough start when the balloon did not rise fast enough, and a slight breeze caused it to crash into the ground damaging the solar panels. Luckily Gert ZS6GC had spare solar panels with him and could replace the solar panels allowing the balloon to successfully take to the air on the second attempt. You can find the balloon on https://aprs.fi/ or on http://amateur.sondehub.org/. Just search for ZS6SRC-21. 

The balloon is broadcasting a WSPR signal on 14.097020 MHz.
At the time of writing this program the last position of the balloon at 16:13 local time was 123 km East of the Northern KwaZulu-Natal coast. 

This is the second Pico Balloon launched. ZS6SRC-20 was launched on 24 May 2025 but something went wrong and the balloon could not be tracked further.

The BACAR team in Secunda plan to launch one balloon per month. 

TEP

TEP now seems to have finally come to an end for this season. No further reports from Garry ZD7GWM on St Helena Island and Wynand V51WW also had a single contact on Monday evening and nothing further.

 DEMO OF Q65 and MSK144

Derek ZS5Y has made an offer on the 46 Long Distance WhatsApp Group to do a demo on how to use Q65 and MSK144.

The digital  demo will be on Sunday 22nd June from 08:00 SAST via a Microsoft Teams meeting.
Yes, you need to be out of bed early to catch the meteorites. If the time is later in the day then MSK144 will be hard to demonstrate as there will be fewer meteorites entering the atmosphere and burning up to produce the ionisation trails that we use for Meteor Scatter communications.
Derek requests that everyone interested in attending should send him their email address and he will send out the meeting invites. Derek can be contacted via WhatsApp at +27 82 852 8552 or on email at zs5yham@gmail.com.

Derek, thanks for this great initiative and I am certainly looking forward to learning something new myself as well.
 

HOT IRON THE JOURNAL OF THE CONSTRUCTOR’S CLUB”

While researching for this week’s program I came across a very interesting website with a treasure trove of information gathered by an old 84 year old HF ham as Frank Barnes W4NPN describes himself on this website https://w4npn.org/. There is a lot of information to be found here, mostly HF related, but still very useful to all radio hams including a collection of the free “HOT IRON THE JOURNAL OF THE CONSTRUCTOR’S CLUB” magazine stretching back to the first issue in September 1993. 

CAN RADIO AMATEURS BE PROFESSIONALS?

We all know that the ITU definition for the amateur service is:
“A radio communication service for the purpose of self-training,

intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by amateurs, that is, by duly authorized persons interested in radio technique solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest.
So based on this definition amateur radio is fundamentally a hobby of a technical nature, yet there are many professional people from all walks of life and disciplines who participate in this hobby.

Here is a question asked by Onno VK6FLAB “Can you be a Professional Radio Amateur?” 

Can you be a Professional Radio Amateur.mp3

 I agree 100% with what Onno says and would like to add the following:
There are some of our fellow radio amateurs who have 40 or more years in the electronics, broadcast, manufacturing and telecommunications industries and are very highly technically qualified and skilled. They will also have exposure and experience in quality control, occupational health and safety, compliance to local and international standards and so on. These Radio Amateurs will certainly be Professional Radio Amateurs and will conduct themselves accordingly.
 

This however does not mean that Radio Amateurs not being experienced in the engineering fields cannot also be Professional Radio Amateurs. This is especially true when Radio Amateurs are performing public service. When you are in the public eye it is especially important to act in a disciplined and professional manner.
For example a radio operator providing emergency communications needs to slot into a structured Disaster Management or Search and Rescue operation and operate seamlessly alongside the other professional governmental agencies and services during an emergency situation. During this time you will be seen as and relied upon as a communications specialist. You may frown upon my use of the words “communications specialist”, but remember when all other communications infrastructure has failed, and we radio amateurs who are skilled and practised in the art of providing emergency communications step in and provide a slick and professional service to our communities who are in distress, we are being Professional Radio Amateurs.

In actual fact we have already been requested by both Gauteng Provincial Disaster Management and the National Disaster Management to be the Communications Specialists for the South African Urban Search and Rescue Team. They do not see or experience us as amateurs. In their eyes we are professionals who work alongside them and provide solutions to their communications challenges in a professional and no nonsense way. We are there to help provide a safe working environment for them. As one of my colleagues likes say “We have solutions waiting for challenges that needs to be solved”.
 

How about telling us about that exciting long distance contact that you have made on the VHF and above bands or about that project that you are working on in the VHF and above bands? Send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za. 

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz. 

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented by Brian Jacobs ZS6ZY.

Focus on VHF and Above 1 June 2025

Audio version

Good news is that there has been some more TEP contacts between St Helena Island and Portugal and Spain.

It is reported that on Monday 26 May Garry changed over from a vertically polarised omnidirectional antenna to a Yagi antenna providing approximately another 6 dB gain.

On Tuesday 27 May there was a contact made between ZD7GWM and Lars EA7/SM0KAK at 20:22 UTC and another contact between ZD7GWM and CT1APE was also reported on Tuesday evening. 

On Friday evening 30 May contacts were reported between ZD7GWM and EA7/SM0KAK, EA4GDA, EA4I 

Well done to all the stations that were on the air and making the contacts possible. 

ARISS reports that HamTV is scheduled to be installed on the International Space Station in late June. 

Originally installed in 2013, HamTV has been inactive since the equipment failed in 2019. HamTV has previously been used to facilitate school contacts with ISS astronauts. 

I have returned home after a great week in the Bushveld with little or no cellular communications. It was a time to rest and to reflect about my journey in amateur radio. I have been licensed for 42 years now although my interest in radio started way before when I was still in school when I built a crystal set. During my days as a Scout, I participated in a number of JOTA events as well. After school, I joined the military and soon became an Instructor at the School of Signals. I later studied and qualified as a Radio Technician and ended up training radio technicians. It was during this time that I wrote my Radio Amateur Examination.

I did a 12 month stint on Marion Island where our only method of communication was via radio. We used to send all our weather observations via RTTY between Marion Island and the Weather Office in Pretoria. Any medical emergency was dealt with via HF radio-telephone to South Africa. All letters and phone calls were sent via HF radio. We had no less than five radio schedules every day. This was not a hobby this was the real thing and our lives depended on radio. It was our only method of communication with the outside world.

There was also a time when the hobby was on the back burner while I built a career in Electronic Test and Measurement, Manufacturing Test Systems, Broadcast and Telecommunications Systems. The hobby again came to the foreground and I spent many hours late into the night experimenting and experiencing the various aspects of the hobby. I have thoroughly enjoyed everything that I have done on my journey in amateur radio and still volunteer my time to the hobby and put back what I have received and experienced.

During the Centenary celebrations over the weekend of 17 May we saw a small glimpse into the rich history of Amateur Radio in South Africa. Some of the history of the folk who helped make the hobby what it is today is recorded and preserved, but most of our history is lost because it is not recorded. We put it off to be done later, then it is too late and it is lost forever.

People always think that they have not made a contribution or that their contribution is insignificant, but when we look back all the contributions add up and are part of the legacy of the greatest scientific hobby on earth. 

What is your legacy or history of your journey in amateur radio through the years that you want to leave behind for future generations?  

Let us now listen to Onno VK6FLAB discussing “What is our Legacy” 

VK6FLAB_What is your Legacy.mp3

Now is the time to document your history before it is too late and lost for ever. Do the right thing and contribute to the history of Amateur Radio in South Africa by sending your story to archives@sarl.org.za. 

How about telling us about that exciting long distance contact that you have made on the VHF and above bands or about that project that you are working on in the VHF and above bands? Send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za. 

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz. 

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 25 May 2025

Audio version

This week there is again very little VHF and above activity that has been reported.

This however should not restrict your activities on the VHF and above bands. There are unlimited opportunities and frequencies available. 

There appears to be a total misconception that VHF and UHF are FM bands and restricted to repeaters usage. This is simply not true.
The Baofeng and Barbed Wire group has already proven how far one can communicate using a simple hand held radio and a homebrew YAGI antenna.

In the past there have been VHF and above enthusiasts who have communicated even further on SSB using the some of the weak signal digital data modes.

Now you may throw your arms in the air and say that multimode radios capable of doing SSB  are very scarce. Yes, that is true to a certain extent.

Most modern HF radios already have 6 m multimode capabilities built in. Multimode radios capable of working on the upper VHF and UHF frequencies were very popular in the early days, but then the there was a lull where all of the big three amateur radio manufacturers stopped producing multimode radios in the VHF / UHF range. ICOM now have the IC-705 which is a low power multimode radio that you can always connect to a decent battery or power supply and then you can have up to 10 W output power. Of course connecting it to an external power amplifier in the VHF or UHF range will greatly extend your capabilities. Yes, the ICOM IC-705 is expensive and may not be affordable, but you can also keep your eyes on the various swap shops and look out for one of the older multimode radios and there are a number of models that will do the job.

To find out more about the older VHF/UHF multimode radios take a look at https://swling.com/blog/radio-marketplace/vhf-uhf-multimode-transceivers

Now that you have a multimode radio available then you can start looking at which digital data modes to use. Here again there are many and they are not only restricted to the HF bands and the lower VHF 6 m band. They can be used on the higher VHF and UHF bands as well.

In fact you get higher throughput on the higher VHF and above bands as there is more bandwidth available which allows for higher data rates.

There are two recent presentations that I have found on the web that gives you way more information than I can tell you in the time I have available here.

Take a look at these two presentations
https://www.qsl.net/sccarc/file/archives/11-1-23.pdf and https://w5sc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/DigitalModesOverview_N5MNW-2024_pdf_min.pdf 

The only biggest challenge you may have will be the interfacing to your computer and there are many of ways to do it. You can buy ready made interfaces online or from your favourite amateur radio vendor or you can build them yourself. I personally have built all my interfaces because I like the challenge and there is not one radio that I have not managed to interface to with my computer in order to do digital data modes.
To me the challenge here is not the hardware, but the software and the operating system that you are using.

Here is a document that I have found again on the web that will help you with getting your digital interface up and running, specifically written for Windows 10/11 users.
https://www.ndblist.info/index_htm_files/interfacing.pdf

This is very useful for me as well, as I have always been a fan of the simpler Windows operating systems like XP and Windows 7.

I get lost in Windows 10 and above, hence me being a Linux fan now days.  

Once you have the capabilities of using the digital data modes on the VHF and above bands, there are a lot of propagation modes that you can experiment with and you will even have the capabilities to be able to pass emergency communications messages using some of these digital data modes. 

So what is stopping you from experimenting more in the VHF and above bands. 

How about telling us about that exciting long distance contact that you have made on the VHF and above bands or about that project that you are working on in the VHF and above bands? Send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz. 

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.

Focus on VHF and Above 11 May 2025 

Audio version 

Crop-dusting has been great along the West Coast this week. On Monday 5 May at around 18:39 Naz, ZS1NAZ and Andre, V51B managed to have a great conversation through the newly deployed 145.775 MHz repeater in Oranjamund. The signal received by Naz in Goodwood, Cape Town, was a steady S5. 

Monday_5_May_2025_Contact.mp3

Later in the week on 7 May Naz, ZS1NAZ, Andre V51B and Andre V51LZ again had a contact through the 145.775 MHz repeater, only this time the signals received by NAZ was S9+20. Absolutely a fantastic signal.

Wednesday_7_May_2025_Contact.mp3
Andre V51B describes their repeater as “Simple homebrew repeater with 2 raspberry pi’s (running split site)”
Well done. The repeater seems to be working very well and it just shows how the Tropoducting along the coast can enhance the signals.

Kobus ZS3JPY regularly posts the Hepburn Charts for the day on the ZS/V5/PY/ZD7/FR/Z2/C9 WhatsApp Group. 

The TEP season seems to have come to an end although there was an interesting contact reported between Garry ZD7GWM on St Helena Island and Stefan CT9ACF on the Madeira Islands on 27 April 2025. What was unusual is that the direction between the two stations was not the usual 90° to the Geomagnetic Equator. Also the take off angle from the Madeira Islands was impeded by local mountains. You can read more about the analysis of this contact on the blogspot of John EI7GL at https://ei7gl.blogspot.com/. 

The next TEP Season will be in our Spring Equinox in the August, September and October time frame when the sun is again directly over the Equator. 

You may already have heard about the M17 Project.
According to Wikipedia, “M17 is a digital radio modulation mode developed by Wojciech Kaczmarski (amateur radio call sign SP5WWP) et al. M17 is primarily designed for voice communications on the VHF amateur radio bands, and above. The project received a grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications in 2021 and 2022. The protocol has been integrated into several hardware and software projects. In 2021, Kaczmarski received the ARRL Technical Innovation Award for developing an open-source digital radio communication protocol, leading to further advancements in amateur radio.”

The M17 Project is built on open source hardware and software and the development is now at a stage where main stream radio amateurs can start to explore and play with the technology.
There is already two handheld radios available, the CS7000-M17 and the CS7000-M17 Plus.
WPSD Hotspot software also supports the M17 mode and you can also explore M17 mode on DroidStar.
Take a look at the May 9 issue of Random Wire by Tom Salzer KJ7T at https://www.randomwire.us/p/random-wire-review-issue-130 for reviews and information on how to set up WPSD and DroidStar for M17 mode. 

How about telling us about that exciting long distance contact that you have made on the VHF and above bands or about that project that you are working on in the VHF and above bands? Send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za. 

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz. 

Focus on VHF and written and edited by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ

Focus on VHF and Above 4 May 2025

Audio version

EME Dxpedition

This week Bernie ZS4TX was operating as D2TX from grid JH93 in the Cuatir Nature Reserve in Angola from 30 April – 4 May.

TEP has been very sporadic this year compared to the same period last year. Even Bernie while being further North than Wynand V51WW experienced sporadic TEP propagation which virtually went from very strong signals to very little the last two days.

Bernie’s trip up to Angola was very well received by the EME community as well as the TEP community and I believe that the trip was very successful.

Well done to everyone who participated and helped to sponsor the round trip through Botswana, Namibia and Angola.

At the IARU-R1 Emergency Coordinators meeting on Sunday afternoon I found some of the discussions that were held around the use of 23 cm radios within the railway tunnels in the UK very interesting and that they found that 23 cm worked better than both 2 m and 70 cm. This has given rise to us looking at how we can get our hands on some low cost 23 cm equipment for the testing of cave communications. HAMNET Gauteng have an opportunity to test various communications modes in the cave systems to the north of Johannesburg when the USAR team that they provide communications support to do some training in the caves in the Northern outskirts of Johannesburg. HAMNET have already been planning to test some LoRa Meshtastic modules in the caves.

The recent total power failure in Portugal and Spain that caused a total blackout including no internet services has been a wake up call, and it is now more important than ever before to make sure that radio amateurs practice to be able to provide backup communications when everything fails.

You would think that we in South Africa would be prepared for such an event as we have had lots of practise with loadshedding.

Just take the time to think what would you do when everything failed. You may have a backup plan with solar power and batteries, but how will you be able to communicate or even know what is happening if there is no news, no cellular phones, WhatsApp or any form of social media. Absolutely nothing would be working including to banking applications and even the ATM machines will not work.

How many of us are prepared for an event that happens without any warning and continues for more than 48 hours.

How about telling us about that exciting long distance contact that you have made on the VHF and above bands or about that project that you are working on in the VHF and above bands? Send me a consolidated report of your activity or project with any additional photos, audio or video clips to vhfnews@sarl.org.za.

Remember by sharing your activities with us at VHF News allows us to tell the rest of the amateur community about your achievements and the more we promote the activity on the VHF and above bands the better chance we have of encouraging more amateurs to explore the world above 30 MHz.

Focus on VHF and above is compiled, edited and presented for Amateur Radio Today by Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ.