From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. Our top stories this week: the international Square Kilometre Array and the related South African MeerKAT radio telescope projects are entering important new phases in their development, inside Neotel's fibre optics rollout, and we take a look at the South African hardware incorporated into the avionics suite of the South African Air Force's new Hawk fighter-trainers.

Shannon O'Donnell:
South Africa is one of two countries shortlisted to host UTthe international Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project, the other being Australia. This will be one of the biggest and most exciting science projects in the world. Keith Campbell has the story.

Keith Campbell:
The Square Kilometre Array, or SKA, is a €1,5-billion project to create an instrument which will be 50 times more sensitive than any existing radio telescope. If South Africa wins the bid to host it, it will be located in the Karoo region in the Northern Cape. The SKA programme has now entered its Preparatory Phase, or PrepSKA, which will cost €22-million and will be the final planning phase of the project. PrepSKA will run until 2011. That year will also see the decision on what country will host the instrument, and it is hoped that actual construction of the SKA will start in 2013. The SKA current design has a central array of planar antennas, surrounded by dishes, which together form the core of the instrument. Groups, or Stations, of ten or so dishes radiate out from this core in a spiral pattern, with the outermost stations up to 3 000 kilometres from the core. South Africa is heavily involved in the project, as SKA South Africa Project Director Dr Bernie Fanaroff explains ....

SKA South Africa Project Director Dr Bernie Fanaroff

Keith Campbell:
South Africa's pathfinder for the SKA, the MeerKAT radio telescope array, will be based in the Karoo and will enter its second phase in October, with the start of the erection of the first of the seven dishes in the initial MeerKAT array. This should be finished at the end of next year, and phase three, the construction of the full MeerKAT array, should commence in 2010. The full MeerKAT will comprise 80 dishes, each 12 m in diameter, and each constructed from composite materials. This is a highly innovatory step, and one of the novel technologies South Africa is developing for both the MeerKAT and the SKA. Engineer and MeerKAT Project Leader Anita Loots gives more detail ...

Engineer and MeerKAT Project Leader Anita Loots

Shannon O'Donnell:
We'll be back after this short commercial break.

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Shannon O'Donnell:
South Africa's telecommunications sector has fundamentally changed with the introduction of a second national operator, and this includes a significant infrastructure rollout. Christy van der Merwe reports.

Christy van der Merwe:
Adding to its existing network of 13 000 kilometers of optic fibre in South Africa, converged communications provider, Neotel, has been deploying more fibre access layers in metropolitan areas, for its enterprise customers.

But what does this fibre roll-out actually entail?

Neotel Head of Implementation Imran Abbas:
"Its physically laying your inner ducts, its seven way ducts that we are using for this year, and it depends on the number of buildings in that block or in that area, we decide to put 2 seven ways or three seven ways, depending on the businesses there, or the buildings in those areas."

"The ducts are laid and not the fibre as such, we put the fibre when there is the need and when there is a customer requirement."

"We will also show you today how that literally works, so we will show you a demonstration of how the fibre will be blown in these inner ducts, from one point, right to a customer point."

"We are talking minutes to get from our access point right in to a customer."

Christy van der Merwe:
And there it is... Up to 1 Gigabit a second of capacity, through fibre, to the company doorstep.

Shannon O'Donnell:
A large element of the avionics system for the Hawk jets of the South African Air Force was developed by local industry. Keith Campbell reports.

Keith Campbell:
The navigation and weapons system for the South African Air Forces' new Hawk lead-in fighter-trainers represents a major achievement for local defence and aerospace companies. The programme to develop the South African Haawk navigation and weapons system was led by Midrand-based Advanced Technologies and Engineering, or ATE, and Lorris Duncker, an ATE director, shows us the system's South African components, laid out on a test rig.

ATE Director Lorris Duncker

Keith Campbell:
This test rig is part of an integrated test bench which played a key role in the development of the Hawk navigation and weapons system, as Lorris Duncker explains.

ATE Director Lorris Duncker

Shannon O'Donnell:
And now for a sneak preview of this week's Engineering News magazine:

Read about how the Cape's cement consumption has doubled since 2002 and why growth in demand should continue despite a building slowdown.

A report that State freight logistics group Transnet will begin construction on the vital R11,2-billion new multi-product fuel pipeline in September

And, a claim from the Presidency's deputy policy head Alan Hirsch that South Africa could still attain its target of 6% growth from 2010 despite the ‘serious power emergency'

And in Mining Weekly this week:

Read about the mining industry's declaration that 95% of dust measurements will be below the exposure limit by December, which will help reduce the silicosis threat

We report that Anglo American has succeeded in securing government's tightly held new-order mining rights on it's South African coal, ferrous metals, base metals and most platinum businesses

And, a claim from Keaton Energy's Paul Miller that the export of less coal from South Africa is seen to be strengthening the position of ‘unhedged' coal juniors.

Shannon O'Donnell:
That's Creamer Media's Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa's real economy.