On Sunday the 19^th February 2017, HAMNET Gauteng South provided services to the annual Dischem Ride for Sight race held from the Boksburg stadium.

This year there were 31 operators manning 10 sweep vehicles, 5 water tables and 4 quantum busses with trailers to collect cyclists that had retired from the race, all driven by Hamnet members. The balance of the team set up, manned and operated the JOCC together with Helivac and the Road Rangers.

This year proved to be a rather challenging race with many incidents being thrown at the team. There were so many injuries and accidents early in the race that ambulances became scarce. At one incident there were 3 cyclists injured and eventually 2 were transported in one ambulance and the 3^rd in a second ambulance. The other 3 responded to other incidents leaving the race with minimal available ambulances with incidents piling up. Three more ambulances were brought in, but, coming in out of the cold, they did not know the route and there was no radio communications with them except by phone, making rational response difficult.

Another issue was that the marshals on the short route made a complete error and directed arguably 80% of the short route race down the wrong road! Fortunately Shane (ZS6ZSB) who started sweeping that area noticed the error and called it in. Five of their members were drawn in to manage the incident. The team could not rectify the error as they would never have got the cyclists back on the correct route, so these riders completed a slightly shortened race!

Then, as a result of the inability of closed watering points to reinforce water supplies at points further down the routes, the cut off at Watering Point 3 was enforced by the JOCC as the temperatures were very high and people were dropping out. On the radio, a constant chatter was heard from the busses reporting they were full and returning to base. Unfortunately they had 3 members with PDP’s and 4 busses. Hopefully next year they will have 4 PDP’s amongst their volunteers.

Overall, the race went exceptionally well in the eyes of the organisers who were ecstatic at the way everything had gone. In total there were 5700 cyclists who all had a great day! Thank you, Glynn for the report, and congratulations to the team on snatching a victory from the jaws of chaos.

By contrast, HAMNET Western Cape had an easy time of it marshalling a small group of riders around parts of the Cape Peninsula last Sunday, during the Lion’s Journey for Sight and Service. For the first time that I can remember, HAMNET ran the communications solely on 70cm repeaters, except for APRS, which used the usual 144.800MHz frequency. The weather was fine, but a strong South Easter wind sprang up, and the homecoming for the riders was straight into the teeth of the gale! The sweep vehicles were kept busy towards the end picking up riders who had simply run out of steam, even on the level route. There were no incidents of note, and the route was cleared by 11h30. Thank you to the 10 operators who took part.

HAMNET members in the Western Cape will be drawn in to an exercise this coming week, held under the auspices of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) medical department that trains ambulance medics, who will camp at Nieuweberg Nature Reserve and practise medical rescue techniques. The APRS trackers will be allocated to rescue teams for monitoring purposes, all supervised by HAMNET.

Almost a decade ago, Oregon State lawmakers banned the use of hand-held cell phones to talk or text while driving. Since then smart-phones have exploded in popularity and are used for all sorts of things, not just texting or calling someone.

The Oregon Court of Appeals ruled in 2015 that Oregon’s cell phone law does not technically make it illegal to check Facebook, look up a podcast or even read a Kindle while behind the wheel!

A proposal under consideration now would clarify that all mobile electronic devices are included, and that holding one in your hand for any reason while driving would be a violation. The measure would also increase the penalty for being caught, and increase it even more if the offence led to a crash.

The measure would maintain the current exception to the ban for emergency situations, as well as drivers of emergency vehicles. However, the bill will remove the exception to the law for people operating amateur radios.

That change is opposed by an organization representing amateur radio operators. In written testimony, John Core of the Amateur Radio Relay League said that amateur radios provide an important auxiliary emergency communications option for public agencies during natural disasters. Core wrote that removing the exemption for ham radio operators would “serve as a significant disincentive for Amateurs to install and maintain radios in their vehicles.” End quote.

Thankfully, this exception still holds for radio amateurs in South Africa, who may use a 2 way radio communications device while driving their vehicles, as long as the device is firmly attached to the vehicle, and not a portable or “handheld” radio.

And, at the time of writing, we have been unable to confirm the rumour that HAMNET has already installed three demonstration emergency communications stations complete with APRS digipeaters on the three habitable planets  -1e, -1f and -1g, orbiting the Red Dwarf TRAPPIST-1, 40 light years from Earth, for the benefit of the population there!

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

Cyclone Dineo in the Mozambique Channel has been dominating our news.

In a report from the International Business Times, Cyclone Dineo killed seven people in Mozambique this week, injured dozens and levelled 20,000 homes along the African coast. Cyclone Dineo, which has since been downgraded to a tropical depression, continued to flood South Africa on Friday with eight crop-threatening inches of rain as the countries in the storm’s wake attempted to recover, the Herald Live reported.

“We are again appealing to residents to stay close to their radios as disaster management teams will also be keeping a close eye on the vulnerabilities of different areas,” meteorologist Lulama Menze told the Citizen. “We want to reiterate that the effects of the storm will still be felt, despite it having weakened.”

Dineo, a hurricane that produced winds up to 100 mph, made landfall on Mozambique’s coast Wednesday night, bringing with it rough sea conditions and several thunderstorms. Though areas like the Gaza province didn’t suffer much from the bad weather, the Mopani district in the Limpopo province was forced to cancel school and the Inhambane province of Mozambique saw more than 100,000 people impacted by the storm, according to Herald Live. NASA spotted Dineo from space!

As the weekend got underway, parts of the storm were expected to move into Botswana, the South African Weather Service wrote in a news release.

“The vortex of ex-Dineo is becoming more indistinct as the system weakens,” the service wrote. “Notwithstanding this weakening trend, the system will still pose a great risk for the next 36 to 48 hours, particularly in terms of further exceptionally heavy rainfall and resultant flooding. By Saturday, patches of heavy rain occurrence could even persist over the northern parts of Namibia and Botswana.”

Brian Jones ZS6BV, Regional Director for HAMNET Limpopo Province says “Reports I have from farmers and from CCTV visuals in the area north of the Soutpansberg are of normal rains and wind is a fresh breeze. The effect of Dineo was less than was forecast.” End quote.

Hamnet Free State/Vaal says it will be monitoring emergency frequencies as from 08h00 Friday 17-02-2017 SAST.

“This will be to see what band conditions will be, if we are needed for comms with the Tropical Cyclone, and will also be a nice exercise for all,” said Rickus de Lange ZS4A, Regional Director of HAMNET Free State.

Francois Botha ZS6BUU reported to me that Keith Lowes, ZS5WFD, Provincial Director for HAMNET KZN and Glenham Duffey ZS5GD indicated that they also had networks in operation. The 40 M band frequency of 7,110 MHz became a hive of activity with members reporting in from all over and exchanging signal reports. The 80 metre frequency of 3,760 MHz was in excellent condition on Thursday evening.

And a final note on Cyclone Dineo yesterday was the mention from Francois ZS6BUU that the cyclone is no more, and the satellite photo posted by Tim Hewitt ZS1TGH on the HAMNET Facebook page showing a tatty cyclonic cloud distribution over the far North of the Northern Cape and perhaps Southern Botswana. Let’s hope patchy rain is falling in these areas.

And now a message from Leon Lessing ZS6LMG of HAMNET Gauteng South:

“HAMNET Gauteng South now has an emergency number:  087 550 2482.

We are currently trying to draw up an operational plan for manning it, so any ideas would be appreciated. We have tested this at the value logistics cycle race and it performed perfectly on 4G and LTE data. With Sunday’s Ride for Sight race this will be the primary emergency contact number for race related incidents.

The idea is to punch this through to our local microwave network, but that is a long term capital intensive plan.” End quote.

The invasion of the Fall Armyworm should be declared a national disaster so that emergency funds can be made available to affected provinces before it reaches “catastrophic levels” said Political Parties on Monday.

South Africa meets all the requirements to declare the crop infestation a national disaster according to section 23(6) of the National Disaster Management Act. The Act allows for a disaster to be declared nationally if more than one province is affected.

“The worm could also compromise food security, pushing the price of food up, affecting the ability of millions of South Africans to put food on the table for their families,” it has been stated.

The worm, which is, of course, a caterpillar, likes maize, sorghum, soybeans, groundnuts and potatoes.

The department of agriculture has asked chemical suppliers urgently to register products that can be used to control it.

Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Des van Rooyen has been called on to declare the ‘invasion’ of the pest a national disaster, so that it can trigger the release of much-needed funding to assist maize farmers who are currently struggling to fight this plague.

The department was warned in October 2016 by the International Association for the Plan Protection Sciences (IAPPS) which, at the time, confirmed the outbreak of the pest in Nigeria. The IAPPS warned at the time that the pest could spread rapidly.

According to the latest reports, the pest has spread to Limpopo, North West, Gauteng, Free State, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape.

The Department of Water and Sanitation reports this week that all provincial averages for dam levels are slightly better than last week, except for the poor Western Cape, with no prospect for rain in the next 2 months, and dams at 35%, compared to 42% this time last year. I wonder if Cyclone Dineo could be persuaded to put on an encore here in the Western Cape for our benefit.

Cycle and road-running races abound today in the provinces, and we wish all HAMNET operators good comms in their duties shepherding the competitors on their routes. If you’re out driving, and come across some runners or riders, please give them the benefit of a safe journey.

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

The earth got shaky again this week, and produced a magnitude 6.3 earthquake 10km below the ground on the coast of Pakistan near the Iranian border on Tuesday at midnight our time. Although a quarter of a million people could have been affected by the earthquake, no major casualty figures have been released.

Meanwhile, the Philippines has also been struck by an earthquake, this one a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in central Philippines on Friday 10th February, 10km below the surface, and with an effect estimated to damage the property, or threaten the lives, of up to 1.9 million people within 100km of its epicentre. Again, no reports of casualties yet.

And Tropical Cyclone Carlos-17 continues to hover just off the South Eastern coast of Madagascar, having affected none yet, but perilously close to the Eastern coast. Maximum wind-speeds have been measured at 120KpH.

And also from the East comes news of a sound like a foghorn on 7, 10 and 14Mhz, which is apparently emanating from a Chinese over-the-horizon Radar, which jumps around and emits a sound in 66.66 SPS bursts. It is apparently a strong signal and is an easily heard station on 7,10 and 14 megahertz. It has been reported to the IARU monitoring service. Several countries use over-the-horizon radar, which often has frequency-hopping characteristics, making it difficult to pin them down. Amateur radio frequencies are often the first targets of this interference, and invoking the authorities to do something about the interference is difficult.

In Cape Town yesterday, HAMNET assisted at a very successful charity cycle race called the 99er, held in and around Durbanville. This is the 18th time the race has been organised as a fund-raising event for charities by the el Shaddai Christian School in Durbanville, and it ran as smoothly as a well-oiled machine, thanks to the dedicated organisers from the school.

HAMNET fielded sixteen operators, of whom two were in the JOC, one supervised a temporary APRS digipeater installed on the wine farm Meerendal, outside Durbanville, and three accompanied section chief marshals on their rounds and provided a link to the JOC. The remaining ten were spread along the route, and all vehicles carried APRS trackers, including the four ambulances and one rapid response vehicle. The day proved extremely hot, and the organisers pulled the last handful off the race just before the cut-off at 13h00, because of the dangers of heat exhaustion.

The Medical team managing the race operated from Metro Emergency Services Disaster bus, but had a wired feed from the HAMNET ops vehicle to provide them with an APRS map, providing up-to-the-minute position information of all rescue vehicles. No serious injuries were reported, and the stand-down took place at about 13h30. The organisers complimented HAMNET and thanked them for their contribution and APRS coverage, which made management of the race easy. Well done, HAMNET Western Cape.

A similar race takes place next Sunday the 19th, but has a smaller field, shorter distances, and so a similar operation will be mounted, but from a different start/finish site. After that, there is a short rest-period for HAMNET to catch its breath before the Cape Town Cycle Tour in March, and the Two Oceans over the Easter weekend. Later in April, a trail run sponsored by Wildrunners takes place, and HAMNET will be there too.

Our weekly inspection of dam level averages around the country reveals that Lesotho, Limpopo. Mpumalanga, and North West provinces have all shown a single digit improvement over last week, but poor Western Cape continues to deteriorate, and now has dams only 36% full on average. As mentioned last week, nearly a quarter of that 36% will be too muddy to drink, when the water levels in the dams reach the last 10% of their capacity. There has been almost no rain in February yet, and this station has recorded 0.2mm of rain so far, plus another 11.2mm in January.

Hurried research is being conducted into the best pesticides to use for the new “Fall Armyworm” infestation reported in about 5 of our provinces. Apparently, the worm comes from the Americas, and was first reported in Africa in Nigeria, but a strong wind can blow the moths hundreds of miles in one night, to where they lay their eggs, and hundreds to thousands of the caterpillars hatch, to wreak havoc on wheat and corn crops before marching on to their next crops areas. Luckily, the South African grain manufacturer’s pesticide officials are very progressive, and had already chosen the best substances to control the pandemic in the country.

With the one sunspot group on the Sun today, and the low sunspot number and Solar Flux associated, near vertical incidence preferred frequencies remain in the five to six MHz region, so your local sky-wave connections will have to be on the 80m band. But don’t be shy – you won’t get a chance to check your equipment and antennas for faults unless you put out a call, and see who comes back. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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

Maize farmers in Limpopo, Gauteng, Free State, North West and the Western Cape have recently confirmed the presence of armyworms, which derive their name from their tendency to destroy vast quantities of crops in a relatively short space of time, making an infestation difficult to contain.

Reports from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have detailed the carnage armyworms can wreak on the production of maize crops, and South Africa needs a plan of action in order to prevent a possible food security disaster. Indeed, the armyworm ‘plague’ has already destroyed 70 % of crops in certain areas in Zimbabwe, 100 000 hectares in Zambia and 2000 hectares in Malawi.

Governmental silence on the issue is alarming, especially considering the far-reaching implications of a possible plague. The arrival of armyworms is a threat to our country’s food security and could lead to further increases in food prices, which will have a negative impact on the poorest and most vulnerable in our country.

If the armyworm is confirmed to be of the American variety, South Africa will also not be allowed to export maize which will then impact on this sector’s ability to sustain jobs.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries have been urged to start a process of open dialogue with fellow African countries that have been plagued by armyworms, in order to find a swift solution to this crisis.

From Andrew Gray ZS2G comes this sad news of a rescue attempt at Sardinia Bay, Port Elizabeth. On Sunday afternoon, 29th January,  a 22 year old Zimbabwean student went in to the water to swim. The man entered the water outside of the designated swimming area and this area is not monitored closely by the  lifeguards.

Sardinia Bay is known for its strong backwash and undercurrents. With minutes the swimmer had disappeared under the water. The lifeguards were alerted and swam out to look for the man.

Andrew, ZS2G who was visiting the beach at the time, alerted the PEARS/ HAMNET WattsApp group and asked that those who could come and assist, bring binoculars.

All in all there were 8 people from the PEARS HAMNET group who responded and between them they brought three pairs of binoculars and seven handheld radios. The amateur radio group was tasked to search the rocky shore area next to the beach and this group was the only one on the beach with any binoculars.

The NSRI launched a boat and an Emergency Medical Services helicopter did a search over the water. From the helicopter, a body was seen submerged in the water,  but the waves were too rough for the rescuers  to retrieve it.

On Sunday evening everyone had to stand down. The emergency services have been continuing with the search during the week, but until now the body has not been found.

Andrew, ZS2G ,would like to thank the following who responded to the call:

Mandy ZS2AV, Denise ZS2DG, Colin ZR2CRS,  Graydon ZU2GH,  Mike ZU2MOO,

Dakota ZU2DW, and Bev Higgs , wife of ZS2DH.

Andrew says “A lesson learned by ZS2G during this incident, is always to keep a 2m handheld radio and a pair of binoculars in the car.” Thanks for the insert, Andrew.

And from Riaan Greeff ZS4PR comes a report on the Value Logistics One Cycle Race for 2017, held last Sunday the 29th January. The Vaal Hamnet division was invited by Glynn Chamberlain ZS6GLN of the Gauteng South Hamnet group to assist at this event. Gauteng fielded 18 hams, while Vaal supplied 10, and they assembled on Saturday in the afternoon to install radios and APRS trackers in the ambulances and set up the JOC and the UHF repeaters.

An army marches on its stomach, and so it was that the Vaal team supplied the evening braai and the next morning’s early breakfast. The start was on time, and the race went well, with accident or incident messages clearly relayed to the JOC, manned by a race representative, both ambulance services, traffic and fire department personnel, and HAMNET. 3600 riders were all home by 13h00, and HAMNET Vaal again fed the team at lunchtime.

Riaan says a lot of positive feedback was received from the organisers, and HAMNET in this region left a positive footprint on the community of Midvaal and Meyerton. Thanks Riaan and Glynn for your partnership on the course.

For the second week in a row, the dams in all provinces except the Eastern and Western Cape, are, on average, slightly fuller than last week. The Eastern Cape’s dams are standing at 58% full, like last week, but far behind the 74% full at this time last year. The Western Cape’s dam are on average 38% full, compared to 40% last week, and 46% this time last year. If you remember that the last 10% or so of the dam water will be too muddy to be used for drinking purposes, you realise that the Western Cape is perilously close to a major problem, with enough water perhaps to last until the end of March. The City of Cape Town is cracking down on inconsiderate users, with stiff fines for abuse of water. Potable water may not be used to wash cars or boats, hosepipes may not be used at all, and watering of gardens by bucket or watering can may only happen before 9am or after 6pm on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

Tough times indeed.

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