Phys.org is reporting this week that an international team of astrophysicists and planetary scientists has discovered a possible link between magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence. In their study published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group used data from two sources to compare magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence occurring at nearly the same time.

As you know, the ionosphere comprises the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere—it spans from approximately 48 km to 965 km above sea level, holding ions formed from solar radiation, making it electrically charged. The magnetosphere is an area of space surrounding Earth—it has charged particles that are impacted by Earth’s magnetic field. It exists courtesy of the planet’s internal dynamo, and it extends to approximately 65,000 km from the surface, though the distance varies greatly depending on a variety of factors.

Scientists have long known that turbulence in the ionosphere can cause problems with GPS signals, radio communications and even parts of the internet. Researchers have been looking to understand better why it happens, to figure out a way to predict when it will occur, and how strongly. In this new effort, the research team has taken a step toward solving the latter problems.

The team suspected that activity in the magnetosphere might be responsible for at least some of the turbulence that occurs in the ionosphere. To investigate, they used two sources of observational data: one on activity in the ionosphere (from the Japanese spacecraft Arase) and the other on the magnetosphere (from the ground-based ICEBEAR station in Canada).

By comparing data from both over the period January 2020 to June 2023, they were able to see if activity happening in the magnetosphere was followed soon thereafter by turbulence in the ionosphere and found one such incidence.

Data from Arase showed a burst of activity on May 12, 2021, in the magnetosphere. Seconds later, data from ICEBEAR showed turbulence occurring in the ionosphere. The data also showed the activity for both occurred over roughly the same patch of Earth and that the shape and timing of the signals matched to what the team describes as “a high degree of precision.”

The researchers acknowledge that more work is required before a definitive association can be made between events in the magnetosphere and turbulence in the ionosphere, but they suggest their work is a strong step in proving it to be the case.

Popularmechanics.com has announced this week that a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023. Their announcement was made in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it’s only produced by living organisms.

“It is a shock to the system,” Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. “We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal.”

It may sound surprising that the scientists were “trying to get rid of the signal,” but that’s exactly how detections like this work. Pretty much all of the exoplanets we’ve ever seen are simply too far away to just look at. Instead, to gather more information about what may lie on their surfaces, scientists observe the chemical makeups of their atmospheres.

This is done by capturing starlight that filters through those gaseous layers as a planet completes a transit in front of its host star. Different wavelengths of that starlight are blocked by different atmospheric chemicals, so by reading which wavelengths get filtered out as they pass through an exoplanets atmosphere, we can tell what that atmosphere is made of.

Astronomers have become very good at making these detections, but it’s still a difficult process. And the first step, every time, is to try to filter out noise—errant spikes in a spectrum that can disguise true detections—and false positives that might be caused by, say, a nearly invisible gas cloud in between us and an exoplanet.

So, when the astronomers spotted dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b, they did everything to try to rule out the possibility that it was a ‘whoops.’

But even after carefully exhausting all the avenues they could think of over the course of two full observation sessions with JWST (which is rare in astronomy, considering how many teams want time with the coolest telescope we have) they found it impossible to attribute the detection to anything other than atmospheric composition. And if you rule out the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth.

May I end this shortened bulletin with a huge appeal to all you radio communicators who read this bulletin or listen to it, to consider sending me some news of your area? You will have noticed that, for months now, I’ve had virtually nothing to say about the South African Comms scene, or about events, activities or rescues that we have been involved in. Does that really mean nothing happens in South Africa? Please consider sending me as little as a paragraph from your area, and I will incorporate it in the bulletin. Thank you.

And now, bearing in mind which Sunday today is, may I warn you not to join the ranks of those in the statistics, to whom the following epitaph applies: “Death by Chocolate”!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, hastily wiping the chocolate smears off all the keys on his keyboard, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Nasa.gov reports that NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia celebrated its 60th anniversary on March 19 while also breaking ground on a new radio antenna. The pair of achievements are major milestones for the network, which communicates with spacecraft all over the solar system using giant dish antennas located at three complexes around the globe.

Canberra’s newest addition, Deep Space Station 33, will be a 34-meter-wide multi-frequency beam-waveguide antenna. Buried mostly below ground, a massive concrete pedestal will house cutting-edge electronics and receivers in a climate-controlled room and provide a sturdy base for the reflector dish, which will rotate during operations on a steel platform called an alidade.

When it goes online in 2029, the new Canberra dish will be the last of six parabolic dishes constructed under NASA’s Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program, which is helping to support current and future spacecraft and the increased volume of data they provide. The network’s Madrid facility christened a new dish in 2022, and the Goldstone, California, facility is putting the finishing touches on a new antenna.

The Deep Space Network was officially founded on Dec. 24, 1963, when NASA’s early ground stations, including Goldstone, were connected to the new network control center at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Called the Space Flight Operations Facility, that building remains the centre through which data from the three global complexes flows.

The Madrid facility joined in 1964, and Canberra went online in 1965, going on to help support hundreds of missions, including the Apollo Moon landings.

By being spaced equidistant from one another around the globe, the complexes can provide continual coverage of spacecraft, no matter where they are in the solar system as Earth rotates. There is an exception, however: Due to Canberra’s location in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the only one that can send commands to, and receive data from, Voyager 2 as it heads south almost 21 billion kilometers through interstellar space. More than 24 billion kilometers away, Voyager 1 sends its data down to the Madrid and Goldstone complexes, but it, too, can only receive commands via Canberra.

“These new technologies have the potential to boost the science and exploration returns of missions traveling throughout the solar system,” said Amy Smith, deputy project manager for the Deep Space Network at JPL, which manages the network. “Laser and radio communications could even be combined to build hybrid antennas, or dishes that can communicate using both radio and optical frequencies at the same time. That could be a game changer for NASA.”

In Phys.org this week, I learned that Saccharin, the artificial sweetener used in diet foods like yogurts and sugar-free drinks, can kill multidrug-resistant bacteria—including one of the world’s most dangerous pathogens.

“Antibiotic resistance is one of the major threats to modern medicine,” said Professor Ronan McCarthy, who led the research at Brunel University of London’s Antimicrobial Innovations Center.

“Procedures such as tooth extractions and cancer treatment often rely on antibiotics to prevent or treat infection. But doctors are increasingly facing cases where the drugs no longer work.”

In 2019, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) killed 1.27 million people globally, with resistant infections contributing to nearly 5 million deaths.

Drug-resistant bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii, which causes life-threatening infections in people with a weakened immune system, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, linked to chronic lung infections and sepsis, are on the World Health Organization’s list of top-priority pathogens.

“In exciting work led by our team, we’ve identified a novel antimicrobial— saccharin,” Prof McCarthy said. “Saccharin breaks the walls of bacterial pathogens, causing them to distort and eventually burst, killing the bacteria. Crucially, this damage lets antibiotics slip inside, overwhelming their resistance systems.”

Saccharin has been part of the human diet for longer than 100 years. While it has been extensively tested for safety in people, little was known about its effect on bacteria—until now with a study appearing in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

The international team found that saccharin both stops bacterial growth and disrupts DNA replication, and stops the bacteria from forming biofilms—sticky, protective layers that help them survive antibiotics.

This is very promising news in the world of life-threatening infections.

And techxplore.com is reporting on a new method of predicting where people lost in the wilderness may be found, based on simulations of their decision-making processes, which could help mountain rescue teams save lives in the future.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a sophisticated computer system to model the actions of simulated people lost in outdoor environments.

The system, which is based on data drawn from accounts of how people in the real world behaved after finding themselves lost outdoors, creates a “heat map” showing the probability of where missing people may be found in any landscape.

The Glasgow team hopes it could lead to the development of a robust new method to help search and rescue teams choose where to focus their recovery efforts, which could incorporate sensor-equipped drones to help scour the landscape.

In a new Early Access paper published in the journal IEEE Access, the team outlines how they used data from historical studies of how lost people behaved in real-world situations, to create simulated “agents” who act based on different psychological states.

The algorithms that underpin the agents are guided by distinct sub-models, each with a different goal in mind. They all seek to find their way back to civilization by heading for either water, trees, buildings, paths or roads. The simulated agents make decisions about where to go based on factors including their current location and whether they could see their preferred terrain.

To help inform the agents’ behavior, the team’s system also took into account data gathered on missing peoples’ likelihood of being found in different types of terrain, and the distances people typically traveled from their reported last known location.

The research is part of ongoing efforts at the University of Glasgow to use cutting-edge technology to bolster the work of search and rescue teams. Related research has used a data-driven approach to explore ways of making AI-controlled drones better at searching the countryside for missing people.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, struggling to find his car keys in his house, let alone find lost souls in a strange environment, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Well, the death toll after Myanmar’s double earthquake last week stood at 3145 on Friday, but there are another 4000 or so souls unaccounted for, so this is not the end of the tragedy. Assistance has been slow in coming to Myanmar, and the rubble of many buildings has not yet been removed, so sadly the numbers are going to rise. Rescue teams continue to struggle to clear debris as the chances of finding any more injured but living victims decrease.

Riaan Greeff, ZS4PR, Regional Director for HAMNET in the Free States reports that The 30^th SASOL Marathon scheduled and planned for 29^th March 2025 was a huge success for both the Sasolburg Athletics club and the Sasolburg Radio club.

The Sasolburg Athletics club called for the radio support from the Sasolburg radio club.  The marathon event is a large event and leads to qualifying times towards the Comrades every year. And as happens every year, the seriousness of the call escalates to HAMNET being approached.

23 radio amateurs from three provinces went to Sasolburg on 28 and 29 March.

Gideon ZS4GJA was leading the logistical planning of this event, but due to a severe infection after a recent knee operation, had to withdraw medically and be booked in to a local hospital for an emergency procedure to address his leg.

Riaan, ZS4PR, HAMNET Director Free State, then took the reins to ensure the volunteers are catered for and the arrangement Gideon had in place could be adopted. 

Brian, ZS6YZ, the newly appointed National Director HAMNET, an active HAMNET leader for several years, also attended the race.  Family works together, and his daughter Anja ZS6SJC was also present. Like father like daughter…

The Gauteng and Limpopo members drove though on Friday afternoon and by Saturday morning 4am everyone was in attendance, ready to be deployed to strategic points all over Sasolburg.

Leon, ZS6LMG and Linda ZS6LML took responsibility to lead the athletes, and after the event, remarked that lead athletes are way more taxing than leading cyclists.  It was a first for this experienced couple. 

Ruan ZS6RFC and his wife Ilze-Mari ZS6IMF took the lead for the 10km group. 

The route was manned by several HAMNET members, focused on reporting the condition of athletes, summoning ambulance services, and giving feedback to the JOC, manned by Riaan ZS4PR, Jaco ZS6JCO and Wim ZS6WIM.  Inter-provincial people sitting in the same JOC does allow for excellent experiential learning.

Talking of learning and training, Pro-Ethnos, a fire brigade first responder training team lead by Jurie ZS6RIT from the West Rand was also called to use this event as a training opportunity.  Riaan instructed and allowed the young ladies Maryka ZS6MVS, Duemarie Swart and Nia Nel with their K9, Noala, to practice their communication skills by placing them in one of the more challenging areas in Sasolburg.  They had to relay their messages to a central person, who then relayed the messages to the JOC.  It was the first time they tried to work radio this way, and fared well, with many lessons learned.

By 13:00 the event was over, and the last athletes safe and accounted for.

Dolf Binneman, Chairman of the Sasol Marathon and Sasolburg Athletics club complemented the HAMNET team of radio amateurs for their professional and effective support they provided.  All his water-points and safety staff gave him positive feedback where HAMNET was involved to assist.

The Sasolburg and Vaal area have excellent radio repeater infrastructure in place.  UHF DMR and 2m FM repeaters were used as the main communication channels, and APRS via the digital packet repeater network provided real time tracking of the ham activities, the ambulances and the back marker vehicles.

Riaan thanks his team for a job well done, and I thank Riaan for the fine report.

Writing on camras.nl, a group of radio amateurs report that, on 22 March 2025, they used the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope successfully to bounce a radio signal off the surface of Venus. At the time, Venus was in its closest approach to Earth at about 42.000.000 km. Such a conjunction happens when Venus is between the Sun and the Earth, and happens approximately every 580 days.

‘Earth-Venus-Earth’ (EVE) bounces were extensively performed in the 60’s and 70’s to make radar images of Venus. More recently, in 2012, the Arecibo telescope in combination with the Green Bank telescope made a very detailed map of Venus. The first and, until now, only amateur EVE was achieved in 2009 by AMSAT-DL from the 20m Radio telescope at the Bochum Observatory (Sternwarte Bochum).

The Dwingeloo telescope was commanded to transmit a 278 second long tone at a frequency of 1299.5 MHz. Since the light travel time to Venus and back was about 280 seconds, they could receive the reflection of their own signal afterwards. They repeated this cycle four times.

While Dwingeloo received its own echo, the Stockert radio telescope, operated by Astropeiler Stockert e.V., also successfully received Venus’ echo of Dwingeloo’s signals. The receptions in Stockert were stronger than those received in Dwingeloo, since the Stockert receiving chain is a bit more sensitive.

The data analysis consists of correcting the received data for both the expected Doppler shift and the rate of change of this Doppler shift due to the rotations and relative motions of Earth and Venus. After channelizing the received signal in 1 Hz frequency bins, the echo of the transmitted signal should fall exactly in the predicted bin.

The preliminary analysis already shows a 5.4 sigma detection for Dwingeloo-Venus-Dwingeloo, an 8.5 sigma detection for Dwingeloo-Venus-Stockert, and a 9.2 sigma detection when combining the signals of Dwingeloo and Stockert.

They were planning to send complex modulated signals to perform more analysis on the correlations between transmitted and received signals. Unfortunately the transmitter, mounted in Dwingeloo’s focus box for the occasion, started failing after four successful transmissions. They therefore postponed the other experiments to the next Venus conjunction in October 2026.

In the preparation for this experiment, they collaborated with the Deep Space Exploration Society, who were also preparing an EVE experiment of their own, and the Open Research Institute. During the day of the experiment, they had a lot of help from present CAMRAS volunteers. A big thanks also goes to the volunteers of Astropeiler e.V. for observing with the Stockert telescope.

And thank you to camras.nl for that report.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, wondering whether Venus is full of little pits from having radio signals bounced off her continuously, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

RED alerts for two earthquakes in quick succession in Myanmar were issued by GDACS on Friday morning. The first, a magnitude 7.7, struck at 06h21 UTC at a depth of 10km, and exposed a population of over 6 million to severe shaking. The second, a 6.4 magnitude quake, struck in a nearby area at 06h32 UTC, and endangered the lives of 1.85 million people. At the time of recording this bulletin, casualty numbers have exceeded 1000, with over 2000 people injured, and there is a ghastly YouTube video going round of an incomplete 30-storey building collapsing completely, with workers trapped within. Naturally, transport and communications are severely affected.

Mybroadband.co.za says that insurers have recently warned that extreme weather occurrences, including freakishly strong winds and wind funnels such as tornadoes, are becoming more common in South Africa due to climate change. Local tornado occurrences are not completely unprecedented, with recorded sightings dating back as far as 1905 and multiple formations detected annually.

Meteorologists have generally not focused on these dangerous wind funnels due to their rarity and relatively limited impact compared to other storms.

However, it may surprise some that tornadoes have been responsible for dozens of deaths and injuries in South Africa over the past few decades, and substantial damage to thousands of homes and other buildings.

An article in Wikipedia lists at least 31 significant tornadoes between 1948 and 2025, 18 of which resulted in fatalities.

The most devastating in terms of loss of life occurred in the small Eastern Cape town of Mount Ayliff, on 19 January 1999.

That tornado was classified as F4 on the Fujita scale, with wind speeds between 333km/h and 420km/h, sufficient to throw cars and large objects a considerable distance.

An unclassified category tornado that caused 18 fatalities and 150 injuries in Mthatha just over a month earlier likely made more headlines as former President Nelson Mandela was nearly one of its victims. He was at a pharmacy when the tornado hit but was shielded by his bodyguards while lying on the floor.

Over the past year, there have been at least two confirmed tornadoes, both of which occurred in mid-2024. The stronger of these ripped through parts of Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, on 3 June 2024, with wind speeds in the range of 218km/h to 266km/h. It claimed the lives of 12 people while causing R1.3 billion in infrastructure damage.

Just a day after that, another tornado was spotted moving between Newcastle and Utrecht, although its path resulted in minimal damage.

On Friday, the British ham radio channel TX Factor released its latest video, an in-depth description of the use of the QO-100 satellite repeater station, and using a very smart up- and down-transverter made by DX Patrol.

The Portuguese company has released a second version of this transverter now, making it possible to convert any uplink radio to transmit on the 2.4 GHz band up to the satellite parked in geostationary orbit on 0 degrees latitude and longitude, and to convert the 10.5 GHz downlink frequency to a receive frequency of your choice as well.

So this is basically a one-box-does-most–of-the-heavy-lifting station accessory. To operate on QO-100, you need the DX Patrol, a transceiver to transmit, a separate receiver (preferably) to work full duplex and listen to yourself on the satellite, a GPS antenna to plug in to the DX Patrol unit, to position yourself correctly, and to generate a lock signal to keep the uplink stable, and then a satellite dish, as small as 40cm in diameter, with the necessary coax to send and receive signals.

Of course sophistication like this doesn’t come cheap, but, by the time you have assembled all the parts yourself, and patched them all together, you probably have invested as much in a homebrew station as in the DX Patrol version 2.

The video is available on YouTube, so look for the channel called TX Factor, and watch Bob McCreadie G0FGX set it all up and conduct an easy QSO.

A quick update of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications (DLARC) from Kay Savetz K6KJN reveals that, so far, 149,500 items have been digitized and added, and that’s 19.5 terabytes of information. 1.1 million Pages of data were scanned in 2024 alone, so everything you can possibly think you might ever need is probably already there. Just google Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications and you will be astounded at what has been compiled so far.

In another article, mybroadband.co.za announced on Thursday that MTN South Africa and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite service company Lynk Global carried out a successful technical trial of one of the first satellite-to-mobile device phone calls in South Africa. The phone call, made in Vryburg, North West, allowed the companies to test voice call quality and SMS capabilities over an LEO satellite connection. It was conducted following ICASA’s approval of the use of radio frequencies on MTN-licensed IMT spectrum for the duration of the trial.

“The technical trial was part of our work to find potential solutions to the challenges of providing coverage in underserviced, rural and remote areas,” said MTN South Africa CEO Charles Molapisi. He said that the call was a proof-of-concept of MTN’s ability to complement its ground-based cell towers and other infrastructure with LEOs.

“The implications of potentially leveraging satellite partnerships will not only help MTN achieve its goal of 99% broadband population coverage but most importantly, benefit all South Africans,” Molapisi said.

Lynk Global chief commercial officer Dan Dooley said the successful trial was the first time that a satellite phone call was made in Africa using an unmodified phone.

“Importantly, this technology is device-agnostic, ensuring compatibility with existing mobile units and requiring no special modifications,” the companies said.

Satellite calls via older geosynchronous (GEO) satellites require expensive devices with specialised antennas and modems to enable transmission of data between Earth and GEO satellites orbiting at an altitude of 35,786km.

MTN said that LEO satellites typically orbit at altitudes between 160 km and 2,000 km, meaning that their orbital periods are between 90 minutes and a few hours.

“This is suitable for applications that need rapid data communication or frequent re-visits of specific areas,” the company said. “The lower altitude contributes to lower signal travel times, resulting in lower latency. This is crucial for real-time communication, video conferencing and online gaming.”

The mobile network added that direct satellite-to-phone contact offered several other potential benefits, including mass notification capabilities for critical alerts such as weather warnings, health advisories, and humanitarian updates in remote areas.

Thanks to mybroadband.co.za for both their contributions.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, uncertain as to whether he should be using QO-100 or his mobile phone for a satellite contact, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

IOL.co.za says that KwaZulu-Natal’s continuous cycle of losing homes, rebuilding, and waiting for the next devastating floods has left communities emotionally drained and struggling to cope with the mental toll of disaster fatigue. The disaster-prone province has endured wave after wave of devastating floods, each leaving behind a trail of destruction, displacement, and grief.

Dr Kerry Frizelle, a counselling psychologist at the University of the Western Cape, said survivors of repeated disasters, such as the KZN floods, are experiencing disaster fatigue, a form of emotional exhaustion that has long-term consequences.

“The literature refers to disaster fatigue as a form of emotional exhaustion that builds up and occurs in response to disasters that happen repeatedly. Essentially, emotional fatigue results in demotivation and a decrease in behaviours that would help to address the disaster,” said Frizelle.

In April 2022, KZN was hit by one of the deadliest floods South Africa has ever recorded. Torrential rains caused rivers to swell, roads to collapse, and homes to be washed away. Over 430 people lost their lives, and thousands were left homeless as entire neighbourhoods in eThekwini, OThongathi, and surrounding areas were submerged.

Last month, another round of flash floods hit eThekwini, killing seven people and displacing many others. Roads and infrastructure damaged in 2022 still had not been fully repaired when the latest storms arrived. And weeks later, another deadly storm claimed two more lives. For some, it was the second time they had lost everything.

The repeated trauma of rebuilding only to lose everything again has left many frustrated.

Dr Frizelle explained that when disasters strike the same communities over and over again, this exhaustion evolves into community fatigue, where entire neighbourhoods feel defeated and less able to plan for future disasters.

“When a single disaster occurs, it is likely that you will see community mobilization and collective initiatives to respond and recover. But when the events persist or recur, people are likely to run out of physical and emotional resources.”

“They feel demotivated and helpless and are therefore less likely to respond as they would the first time the disaster occurred.”

She also linked disaster fatigue to the brain’s natural survival mechanisms.

“In dangerous or stressful situations, people’s brains and nervous systems are designed to activate the fight or flight response, they either actively confront the threat or try to escape it,” she explained.

“If neither of these is possible, the third response – freeze – occurs. This might explain what happens with disaster fatigue.”

Clearly, this is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in a different guise. Thanks to IOL for quoting Dr Frizelle.

The ARRL reports that the San Joaquin Valley Section conducted “Perfect Storm,” an amateur radio emergency exercise, on March 5 – 7.

 Section Emergency Coordinator (SEC) Dan Sohn, WL7COO, asked that a section-wide exercise be created that would engage both amateur radio operators and non-amateurs to become more active in their community’s emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

 There were 120 participants from 9 counties within the Section, and both amateurs and participants equipped with General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) radios gathered local situational awareness data. The exercise culminated with a two-hour period during which local groups forwarded their data to a mock Incident Command Post. At the same time, leaders of the groups were asked to participate in a live “hot wash” on Zoom, where the results were reviewed, and errors could be corrected in real time.

SJV Section Manager Steven Hendricks, KK6JTB, said the Perfect Storm exceeded expectations and SEC Sohn reported the exercise was a resounding success.

“We wanted to engage many different organizations and especially young hams,” said Hendricks. “It’s important to tap into their excitement and engage them so that, when a disaster does strike, they can become a vital part of the team.”  They plan to hold two similar such exercises per year in the future.

Here’s a brilliant idea, even if it is still functioning in its infancy.

A trio of physicists from Princeton University, CIT’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Spectral Sensor Solutions, is proposing the possibility of generating electricity using energy from the rotation of the Earth. In their study, published in the journal Physical Review Research, Christopher Chyba, Kevin Hand and Thomas Chyba tested a theory that electricity could be generated from the Earth’s rotation using a special device that interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Over the past decade, members of the team have been toying with the idea of generating electricity using the Earth’s rotation and its magnetic field, and they even published a paper describing the possibility back in 2016. That paper was met with criticism because prior theories have suggested that doing so would be impossible because any voltage created by such a device would be canceled as the electrons rearrange themselves during the generation of an electric field.

The researchers wondered what would happen if this cancelation was prevented and the voltage instead captured. To find out, they built a special device consisting of a cylinder made of manganese-zinc ferrite, a weak conductor, which served as a magnetic shield. They then oriented the cylinder in a north-south direction set at a 57° angle. That made it perpendicular to both the Earth’s rotational motion and the Earth’s magnetic field.

Next, they placed electrodes at each end of the cylinder to measure voltage and then turned out the lights to prevent photoelectric effects. They found that 18 microvolts of electricity were generated across the cylinder that they could not attribute to any other source, strongly suggesting that it was due to the energy from the Earth’s rotation.

The researchers note that they accounted for the voltage that might have been caused by temperature differences between the ends of the cylinder. They also noted that no such voltage was measured when they changed its angle or used control cylinders.

The results will have to be verified by others running the same type of experiment under different scenarios to ensure that there were no other sources of electricity generation that they failed to account for. But the researchers note that if their findings turn out to be correct, there is no reason the amount produced could not be increased to a useful level.

Thank you to Phys.org/news for that enticing idea. If it is possible to scale the process up, we’d have a large amount of energy constantly available.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, feeling dizzy at the thought of all the effects of rotation, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Since last weekend, KwaZulu Natal has been experiencing extreme rainfall conditions. The death toll during the flooding has risen to nine individuals. An orange level 5 warning for severe thunderstorms across uMdoni, eThekwini, uMkhambathini, Ray Nkonyeni, and uMzumbe municipalities was issued, and Durban and the South Coast were hard hit.

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi warned that the rain was expected to impact road infrastructure in and around the eThekwini Metro which was already experiencing flooding, underscoring the severity of the situation. About 160 affected people from Lamontville were relocated to temporary decent accommodation while a permanent solution for their discomfort was being sought.

ENCA reports that Gift of the Givers is expressing its frustration with the KwaZulu-Natal government. This comes as thousands have once again been displaced by heavy rains and flooding. The aid organization says government must stop reacting and put preventative measures in place.

Meanwhile, affected residents are trying to rebuild their lives as families come to terms with the loss of loved ones.

Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane was expected to visit Durban this past week to assess government’s response to the disaster.

As I transmit this, the Cape Town Cycle Tour, previously called the Argus Cycle Tour, is taking place. The 109km long route started anywhere from 06h15 to 08h57, depending on your seeding, and the shorter 42km race started at 10h00.

The cut off for the long race is 5pm, but the cut off for the 42km race is 2pm, so just 4 hours for the short race. The weather is predicted to be clear, and hopefully not too hot, but the killing factor is usually the wind, which can make life very difficult for the return trip from the southern peninsula back to the Cape Town finish.

HAMNET is not directly involved in the comms for this race, but we are always on standby if a disaster of some sort strikes. Our regional director Michael ZS1MJT has a daughter doing her first race today, so we’ll hear all the sweaty detail during the coming week.

Michael’s other daughter lives in Australia, in Brisbane to be precise, and on the promontory in front of Brisbane, directly exposed to Tropical Cyclone ALFRED, which will have crossed the shores from directly east by the time this bulletin is heard.

Australians have been watching the Cyclone for several days now, as it hovered a couple of hundred kilometres off the coast, and felt the dread build up, as ALFRED decided to take a very slow and leisurely approach to the coast line. Winds have been extreme, whipping up enormous waves, and rainfall has been aplenty, though, by Friday evening our time, the storm had not yet crossed the coast.

Michael reassures me that his daughter and her husband have very sensibly taken their campervan, and driven off 250km to the  west, and are staying at a camping resort until the storm has lost strength, which is expected to happen once ALFRED makes landfall.

The Queensland authorities have sensibly been very proactive in their preparations for the arrival of ALFRED, encouraging evacuations, shoring up coastal properties with sandbags, and opening shelters early in case houses are destroyed. By Friday evening, our time, 330000 houses were already without power.

The storm struck the coastline at about 1am Saturday morning, their time, and fortunately diminished in strength to become a Tropical Low, by definition. That didn’t stop 100 to 110 km/h winds, the uprooting of trees, damage to houses and cars, and the destruction of powerlines. As of Saturday evening, Australian time, no casualties had been reported.

Writing in theconversation.com, Savannah Meacham says that she is experiencing retraumatisation, where we re-live stress reactions experienced as a result of previous traumatic events when faced with a new, similar incident.

As a researcher in emergency responses to a broad range of disasters, Savannah says she understands why she is feeling like this. However, many people may not realize the stress they are experiencing right now is related to an earlier disaster or traumatic event in their life. That earlier disaster could be another cyclone, or a different event, such as a flood or bushfire.

Some signs and symptoms of retraumatisation might be:

Intrusive thoughts

Nightmares and having trouble sleeping

Hypervigilance (for example, feeling “on edge” all day)

Sensitivity to triggers such as loud noises

Feelings of isolation

Thinking about, planning or even attempting suicide

Panic attacks

Using/abusing substances, such as alcohol and other drugs, and

An increase in unhealthy behaviours (for example, being more prone to aggression or violence).

Cyclone Alfred may be awakening memories and feelings, and the re-emergence of those stress reactions can be confronting. It can feel like re-opening a wound that hasn’t quite healed.

People begin to understand the effects of being exposed to multiple disasters – bushfires, cyclones, floods, and let’s not forget the COVID pandemic – that erode our resilience.

This type of multiple exposure influences our feelings of safety, security and even our hope for the future, all increasing the risk of poorer mental health.

For people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), retraumatisation may cause them to relive their past traumas in intense detail. It can feel like past traumatic events are happening all over again.

Thank you to Savannah for explaining why we feel what we feel.

Well, one good thing, people, is that the threatening asteroid, named 2024 YR4, which was anticipated potentially to hit earth in 2032, has now been more precisely tracked, and the risk of collision with earth has been reduced from a 2.8% risk originally, and now stands at 0.001%, which is regarded in scientific circles as essentially zero! I’m sure you’ll agree this is very reassuring indeed.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, feeling safe to hang out the washing after all, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

An unexpected Tropical Cyclone, called GARANCE, developed East of Madagascar this week suddenly, but, unlike others which usually travel west towards eastern Africa, this one travelled east and then south east.

Phys.org/news says that CYCLONE GARANCE barreled across La Reunion Island on Friday killing at least two people as fierce winds left destruction across the French Indian Ocean territory, according to authorities.

Winds of up to 230 kilometers per hour battered the territory of 900,000 people and the storm earlier forced the closure of the main airport on nearby Mauritius.

One woman in her 50s was probably sucked into a sewer pipe and swept away in torrential water, the local prefect said, describing the storm as “brutal and violent”. A man was killed in an electrical fire and another person is missing, the prefecture said.

Some 180,000 households were without power, 80,000 without water while 114,000 people had lost mobile phone coverage, according to authorities. Residents posted pictures online of uprooted trees, torn-off roofs and flooded homes. Entire streets were inundated and cars washed away.

Authorities imposed a maximum alert for several hours on Friday, confining the entire population—including law enforcement and emergency services—to homes and offices. That was eventually eased so that police and emergency services could get out but authorities still ordered the rest of the population to remain indoors.

GARANCE landed on the island’s north and shifted south before heading back out to sea. And, while the violent gusts and torrential rain eased, heavy rain and strong winds persisted.

Around 100 troops and firefighters were to be dispatched from Mayotte—a French territory nearly 1,500 kilometers away—as soon as weather conditions permit. Another 100 were to go there from mainland France.

La Reunion and Mauritius—around 225 kilometers to the northeast—had been on high alert since Wednesday. Mauritius shut its main airport on Wednesday, while La Reunion did the same on Thursday.

Curiously, there has been little mention in weather circles, of a fairly strong looking storm cell at the bottom corner of Madagascar, and appearing to be drifting in a south-easterly direction away from the coast of eastern South Africa. It looks more extreme than the cloud cover over the French Islands associated with GARANCE.

When Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ, formerly deputy National Director of HAMNET, sent me the report on the Ride for Sight last week, he included some other news of interest to us. He wrote:

“On Wednesday 19 February, Brian ZS6YZ, Leon ZS6LMG and Johan ZS6DMX attended a training session with the USAR SA-01 team at the Centurion Fire Station. It was yet another rainy day and the team practised their rope skills indoors in the huge hanger where the fire trucks are stored.

“Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) are a dedicated and highly skilled and trained team of search and rescue specialists from various municipal and provincial fire and EMS stations in Gauteng. HAMNET has been selected to be their communications specialists and we were requested to attend the USAR training to meet the team and to get to understand how they work and what their communications challenges would be in the field. HAMNET’s primary and only role is to provide communications to the team, both internally within the team and in the field wherever they may be needed.

“This could include underground in caves or mine shafts, in the water or in the mountains. Communications could be needed between the team and their base as well as back to the Disaster Management Centres to which they report. This could include international deployments, as the USAR teams worldwide are all trained to the same international UN standards coordinated by The International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG).

“HAMNET and USAR SA have already started with formalising an agreement between them.”

Thanks Brian, and best wishes for rapid progress between the groups.

Those of you, like me, whose curiosity is still piqued by what happened to Malaysian flight MH370, over 10 years ago, may be interested to know that the new search that has been started by a private underwater search and rescue company, is being reported on daily by a YouTube channel called “Airline News with Geoffrey Thomas”.

Some months ago, the amateur fraternity was split over some research done by a British Aerospace Engineer called Richard Godfrey, our own Dr Hannes Coetzee ZS6BZP, and Professor Simon Maskell, who published a lengthy paper called “The MH370 Case Study” describing how they had used perturbations in WSPR transmissions between Australia and Switzerland, to demonstrate a path for the metal aircraft that was MH-370 in the southerly direction it appeared to have taken that night. Their research showed that the search area previously studied did not include the likely resting place at the bottom of the ocean.

Naysayers in the amateur radio community thought it highly unlikely that you could prove anything with WSPR perturbations, but the organisers of the new search are taking all suggestions seriously, and the physics of unexpected fluctuations in weak signal propagation have encouraged the searchers to look at the possibilities created by the research.

Anyway, Geoffrey Thomas and Richard Godfrey co-host a daily 20 minute video, which has been going for the last 8 days or so, and can be easily found on YouTube, if you want to see what the ship called Armada 78 06 has done so far, and what its unmanned underwater robots have scanned. As of Friday night, nothing had come to light, when the ship returned to Freemantle for provisions and fuel. Most of the results of the deep sea scans (at 4600 metres below the surface, mind you) will only become available later as their scans of the ocean floor are analysed.

The search area is amongst some Tropical Cyclones, but the seas are reasonably manageable now, and the search will continue by the private company, on a no find, no fee basis.

When I wrote about Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ, higher up in this bulletin, I didn’t yet know he has been promoted to Top Brass in the HAMNET organisation. Grant Southey ZS6GS has stepped down, and his space taken by Brian, who has been very active in matters amateur radio, the field of beacons, and the work of HAMNET Gauteng. So Brian is no stranger to us, or to the responsibility he will carry, and I wish him well. Congratulations too, to Keith Howes, ZS5WFD, who assumes deputy national directorship in Brian’s footsteps. Keith already has a big reputation in HAMNET organizational skills.

I also thank Grant ZS6GS for the leadership roles he has played for at least 10 years, and wish him well in his retirement.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has sent me a nice report of last Sunday’s Cycle Race in Division 6. He says:

“HAMNET Gauteng completed a very successful Ride for Sight Cycle event over the weekend of 15 and 16 February. Some of the team gathered at the stadium at 09:00 on Saturday morning to visit the infamous S-bends with the event Safety Officer. The S-Bends are intersections of the course where the cyclists change direction through a S-Bend between two roads.

“This same route is used for cyclists going out and returning to the Finish at the Boksburg Stadium. This section of the route uses the most road marshals, radio marshals and traffic officers to control the traffic.

“Later on Saturday morning, trailers needed to be collected from the hiring company that are towed behind buses and sweep vehicles to deliver and collect toilets around the route, and also to transport the bikes of cyclists who withdraw from the route either because of equipment failure, injury or exhaustion. This is all done by HAMNET members, most of whom do not use their own vehicles, but use one of the 10 sponsored bakkies. The two buses used to collect cyclists are also driven by HAMNET operators who have PDP licenses. HAMNET vehicles are used by the Water Point Managers, the lead vehicles and the Tail-end Charlies who also have a sweep vehicle accompanying them to collect all signs that have been put up for the event.

“The VOC was set up with antennas being erected and all the vehicles used for the event that did not already have radio equipment installed being given a radio and a tracker. At around 20:00 the members who had travelled from far and who slept over at the venue had a braai and a relatively early night’s rest so as to be up at 03:00 to get ready for race day. Other members who had not slept over had to be up by at least 02:00 in order to be at the venue by 04:00

“Race day arrived with rain showers. First order of the day was to install equipment into the five ambulances and two medical response vehicles, before the Water Point Managers escorted their cold storage trucks to their respective water points around the route. The morning did not go without a hitch and crisis management was the order of the morning, but by the time the first cyclists left the starting pens everything settled down and the event ran like clockwork as expected.  As the race progressed water points and their sweeps that were stood down by the back marker moved their water trucks to other water points and the sweeps were reassigned to other sections.

“There were far less cyclists on the road due to the weather which was probably a blessing in disguise. No major incidents were dealt with and by 14:00 most of the team were back at the stadium to assist with the de-installation of all the vehicles and taking down of all the antennas and equipment in the VOC.”

Brian thanks the 27 operators by call-sign, which I am not going to list here to reduce verbiage, and I thank Brian for the comprehensive report.

Well if you ever wanted a sign that doom is nigh, read on. Nypost.com reported on Tuesday that a rare “doomsday” creature known as an Oarfish has washed ashore in the Canary Islands, sparking fear that a disaster is on our doorstep.

Generally residing at depths of up to 3,200 feet, this elusive fish was found by bathers on the coast of Playa Quemada, as seen in a video with over 9 million views on Instagram, Jam Press reported.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one viewer on seeing the “doomsday” creature.

In the clip, a bather can be seen approaching the shimmery, orange-fringed fish in a bid to save it. The particular specimen appeared to be several feet in length, much smaller than their max size of 56 feet, which makes them the longest of any bony fish.

Unfortunately, the resplendent critter’s journey to the surface likely didn’t bode well for the beast — shallow-swimming oarfish are typically sick or even dying, scientists claim.

The creature’s presence is believed to be unlucky for humans as well. According to Japanese mythology, the serpentine plankton-eaters will purposely rise to the surface and beach themselves whenever they sense that trouble’s on the horizon.

In fact, doomsday fears ramped up during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami when dozens of these pelagic beasts washed ashore in the two years preceding the catastrophe.

Instagram commenters seemed to believe the latest emergence was a scaly sign of the apocalypse.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one, while another wrote, “They show up before natural disasters.”

“Usually, it means that an earthquake is coming when it appears on the surface of the water,” said a third. In August, an oarfish was found in La Jolla Cove just two days before a 4.6 earthquake shook Los Angeles.

However, experts were quick to dismiss this as a giant fishy story.

“The link to reports of seismic activity goes back many, many years, but there is no scientific evidence of a connection, so I don’t think people need to worry,” said Hiroyuki Motomura, a professor of ichthyology at Kagoshima University. “I believe these fish tend to rise to the surface when their physical condition is poor, rising on water currents, which is why they are so often dead when they are found.”

Medicalxpress.com is reporting an interesting case this week from Italy of an overweight person who tried cocaine in an attempt to lose weight, and became addicted to it, not surprisingly.

When he reported to the doctors in Italy, his medical condition made him an ideal candidate to receive Semaglutide, one of the members of the Ozempic family. He was followed up at 12 weeks, when the team found that the patient had lost approximately 12% of his body weight, as was expected. Then, because the patient reported a drastic reduction in cravings for cocaine, the team asked him to take a standard psychology survey assessment designed to quantify addiction cravings. It showed the patient experienced a 59% reduction in cravings.

The patient also reported feeling healthier overall, with more energy, less joint pain and a brighter outlook. The only downside was gastrointestinal distress, which the team readily treated. They suggest future research could determine whether GLP-1 therapies like Semaglutide might be used for the treatment of a wide variety of drug addictions.

The only snag here is the almost total unavailability of these medicines in clinical practice, not even for the diabetics, for whom they are intended, because all supplies are gobbled up by the rich and famous in first world countries to help them lose those centimetres which they think make them look ugly.

This is Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, unable to afford Semaglutide, happy to remain ugly, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

The Brakpan Herald is noting, in citizen.co.za, that the emergency communications division of the South Africa Radio League (SARL), HAMNET, is setting up a massive communications network to provide critical radio communications at the Ride for Sight cycle race on February 16, that’s today, to ensure the safe and efficient running of the event.

SARL HAMNET is part of the organizing committee of the Retina South Africa Dis-Chem Ride for Sight event to be held at Boksburg Stadium. HAMNET’s dedicated team of communications specialists will be responsible for establishing a venue operations centre (VOC) with three radio networks to manage communications for the event.

All resources on the road assisting the cyclists are tracked with a tracking system so that at all times the VOC personnel comprising of fire, medical, traffic, Road Angels and other organizations know exactly where everyone is and which resources are the closest to where an incident has taken place and where help is needed.

HAMNET also has their members monitoring the five water points along the route, ready to assist if supplies are getting low and are also supporting ten sweep vehicles which are manned by qualified and licensed radio amateurs and basic life support (BLS) first aiders who patrol the route, ready to assist any cyclist in need. All are tracked and in radio contact with the VOC.

It will also provide an emergency phone system making MySoS available to cyclists to call for assistance. When a cyclist pushes the help button on the MySoS app on his smartphone, a marker immediately appears on a large map at the VOC showing where the cyclist is and all the resources available closest to the cyclist.

I look forward to having a report perhaps, straight from the horses’ mouths, so to speak, in next week’s bulletin.

The science world is abuzz with a triple whammy observation from outer space picked up on Thursday the 6^th February. It very seldom happens that any astronomical or cosmological event is noticed using more than one type of electromagnetic, gravitational, or quantum technique at the same time.

I have written previously about observatories developed to watch for gravitational waves, which would distort space-time, and predicted by Albert Einstein at least 100 years ago. There are currently two Light Interferometry Gravitational Observatories, abbreviated to LIGO, one in America, and the other in Italy, and more on the way. If a cosmic event is big enough it will disturb the gravitational field of the universe, causing ripples like seen in a pond after you drop a stone in the water, but disturbing gravity, and able to be detected everywhere simultaneously.

Well, there was a major Gravitational Wave disturbance last Tuesday, measured in the LIGO experiments, and deemed to be coming from a specific spot about a billion light years away in the Universe.

Very shortly thereafter, a Neutrino detector buried deep under the ice in Antarctica detected a burst of Neutrinos coming from the same direction, but taking a minute or so longer to get here, and also measured to have come from the direction of the gravitational disturbance just felt.

This got scientists curious, and so they canvassed all observatories for anything unusual, and a radio observatory in Canada, dedicated to detecting Fast Radio Bursts (FRB’s) reported a similar observation, but about a day later, and also coming from the exact spot where the Gravity waves and the Neutrinos had come from.

Interesting that the gravitational disturbance was detected before the neutrinos arrived and also before the radio waves did. I thought radio waves travelled at the speed of light, and nothing travelled faster than that!

The source of Fast Radio Bursts is still not understood. Extremely massive magnetic sources, called Magnetars, are currently the chief suspects, but with gravity waves and extra unexpected Neutrinos to think about, all three types of astronomical observations may allow scientists to develop better explanations for their own phenomena. So watch this space – knowledge can only grow with these types of events.

Techxplore.com reports this week that engineers have enabled a drone to determine its position in the dark, and indoors. In the future, autonomous drones could be used to shuttle inventory between large warehouses. A drone might fly into a semi-dark structure the size of several football fields, zipping along hundreds of identical aisles before docking at the precise spot where its shipment is needed.

Most of today’s drones would likely struggle to complete this task, since drones typically navigate outdoors using GPS, which doesn’t work in indoor environments. For indoor navigation, some drones employ computer vision or LIDAR, but both techniques are unreliable in dark environments or rooms with plain walls or repetitive features.

MIT researchers have introduced a new approach that enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments. Self-localization is a key step in autonomous navigation. The researchers developed a system called MiFly, in which a drone uses radio frequency (RF) waves, reflected by a single (RF) tag placed in its environment, to autonomously self-localize.

Because MiFly enables self-localization with only one small tag, which could be affixed to a wall like a sticker, it would be cheaper and easier to implement than systems that require multiple tags. In addition, since the MiFly tag reflects signals sent by the drone, rather than generating its own signal, it can be operated with very low power.

Two off-the-shelf radars mounted on the drone enable it to localize in relation to the tag. Those measurements are fused with data from the drone’s onboard computer, which enables it to estimate its trajectory. The researchers conducted hundreds of flight experiments with real drones in indoor environments, and found that MiFly consistently localized the drone to within fewer than 7 centimetres.

“As our understanding of perception and computing improves, we often forget about signals that are beyond the visible spectrum. Here, we’ve looked beyond GPS and computer vision to millimeter waves, and by doing so, we’ve opened up new capabilities for drones in indoor environments that were not possible before,” says Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, director of the Signal Kinetics group in the MIT Media Lab, and senior author of a paper on MiFly.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.