Radio Amateur of the Year awards announced

Two Radio Amateurs were recognised for their contribution to the Amateur Radio Service (Ham Radio) at a presentation held in Johannesburg on 8 December. The annual event which is sponsored by Siemens is hosted by the South African Amateur Radio Development Trust.

The senior award was presented to Andrew Roos, ZS1AN, from Cape Town for his work on digital High Frequency (HF) radio. Earlier this year he demonstrated how voice could be digitised and transmitted on a narrow band HF channel, typical less than 3 kHz.

Speech is converted into compressed digital data by a voice codec (voice encoder/decoder). The compressed digital signal is converted to an audio signal by a modem. The audio output modulates the single side band signal of a conventional transmitter. On the receive side the process is reversed and the audio is recovered.

Digital voice for HF has some distinct advantages over ordinary analogue voice. It is capable of very high SNR (50 dB) over channels with only fair SNR (20 dB). Speech bandwidth can exceed transmitted bandwidth and error correction reduces the impact of static, multi-path and fading.

Andrew said that there are some disadvantages, which he believes will be overcome. He said that it is necessary to reintroduce some noise at the receive end to make the audio sound more natural. He also believes that more advanced codecs will come onto the market as commercial use of digital voice increases.

The award recognises the contribution Andrew is making to the promotion of research and development in Amateur Radio giving true meaning to the ITU definition: "Amateur Radio is a service for the purpose of self training and technical investigation."

The Young Radio Amateur of the Year Award was presented to a 15-year-old learner from Westville in KwaZulu-Natal, Edrich de Lange, ZR5TUX.

Edrich obtained his amateur radio license earlier this year and has shown a particular interest in the technology side of Amateur Radio. At the award presentation he said: "I once read that you know you are a ham if you've grabbed a soldering iron the wrong way, well I've done that... a few times. My favourite thing about radios is the electronics.
It is always fun to see what happens when one does something new or just the excitement of seeing your own creation do something, or just see it work."

Edrich said that amateur radio has changed his life. Before he became involved in radio he wanted to become either a chef or a computer engineer. "Now I've got my mind set on becoming an electronics engineer. It has made me appreciate electronic apparatus even more than I did before."

Rolf Spaeth of Siemens presented the awards.
In congratulating the two recipients he said that every year he is amazed at the technology radio amateurs get involved in. He said that it is in particular gratifying to see the involvement of young people which augers well for the future of the communications and electronics industry. He said that Siemens will continue the sponsorship of the awards as the company believes in encouraging innovation and development of technology in amateur radio. Siemens is a sponsor member of the South African Radio League.

SARLNEWS wishes to make use of this opportunity to thank the recipients of the three awards for that what each of you contributed, and will continue to contribute, to the development of the radio communication technique and the furthering of amateur radio. We are sure that you out and out deserved the awards. Thanks also to all the other entrants, your work is also appreciated.

Courtesy of The South African Radio League

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