HAMNET Report 26 November 2017

News coming from mainstream sources in Europe, and being analysed by American sites suggests a huge increase in radioactive toxicity in clouds wafting across Europe, a thousand times stronger than usual. Alex Jones, speaking on InfoWars.com, tells us that the kind of radiation measured is not that which one might expect from ordinary nuclear leaks, which just about any nuclear reactor could be guilty of, as the technology ages, but rather that created by secret nuclear tests or even an explosion in a facility building nuclear weapons.

Russian, French and British sources are identifying a particularly dangerous isotope called RUTHENIUM-106, which arises from fission reactions within a nuclear reactor, and is present at this intense level 968 times more than expected. The origin seems to be in Eastern Central Russia, but the Russian sources have not formally admitted to an accident, or where it has occurred. An area in Russia, bigger than the whole of France, is polluted with Ruthenium-106, and winds are blowing the cloud into Italy, Ukraine, Switzerland, and on to France, as well as up towards Sweden, Finland and Germany.

Alex expresses his huge concern at the cover-ups which continue as the general public is reassured that none of this kind of radioactive leakage is important, and it will be spread out and wafted away, while a million people have been shown to have died of illnesses directly attributable to Chernobyl’s 1986 accident, and Fukushima’s nuclear reactors continue to leach radioactive materials into ground water at the site, and ultimately into the Pacific ocean.

And, as an extension to that, the mind can only boggle at what will happen if a nuclear war breaks out over the Korean Peninsula. In early phases of such a war, local fatalities could run to millions, but radioactive clouds will be relatively confined to the Northern hemisphere for a while, and radiation sickness and deaths in the short-term will be greater there. However, with generalised diffusion, the whole globe will be affected, and you and I could suffer the misery of this chaos too.

Alex Jones pleads for greater attention to be paid to coal-fired power stations, with more modern scrubbing of released fumes, such that coal-dust and lung disease can be restricted, and the only ejecta released by the power stations being carbon dioxide.

The times we live in are very distressing indeed.

In a remarkable show of camaraderie, various and unexpected countries have pitched in to help look for the Argentinean submarine lost off the coast of South America. Unfortunately, it would seem that the supply of oxygen for the 44 crew members trapped has probably run out by now, and the likelihood of survivors being found is very slim. Nevertheless, such disparate countries as England and Russia have sent ships and aeroplanes to try to find the signature of a sunken submarine on the bottom of the ocean.

Tass, the Russian News Agency, says that the Russian oceanographic ship, Yantar, will reach the area by the end of the week, and be able to deploy its high tech survey equipment and submerged search capability.

So far, the countries involved are Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany,  Norway, Peru, Spain, the U.S., the UK, Uruguay and now Russia. Wonderful cooperation indeed, and I hope they are able to locate and retrieve the sub.

A report given to Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille, this week, charts the progress made in various communal water projects as the day the taps in the Western Cape run dry draws nearer.

Boreholes have been completed in Beaufort West, Knysna, Kannaland, and various other projects in Bitou, Saldanha Bay, Matzikama, Langeberg and Theewaterskloof municipalities. Newly appointed Geo-Hydrologists and Provincial Engineers are partnering well with municipalities in all districts. Boreholes have been drilled and water supplies secured at Beaufort West, Stellenbosch, Lentegeur, and Mowbray Maternity hospitals, and further drilling will soon commence at Clanwilliam, Vredendal, Karl Bremer and Red Cross Children’s hospitals.

Approximately one third of schools in the province have an existing borehole, and treatment of groundwater to be able to use it is being tested. Stellenbosch University scientists have developed a  water meter that can be monitored electronically, to be able to notify the school authorities of water leakage before too much is wasted, and these are to be installed in at least 270 schools, as a result of pledges and donations by commerce and industry in the Western Cape to fund their installation. We were lucky to receive 25mm of rain this week, which will help the groundwater levels, though not make a big difference to the dam levels.

Dam storage levels for the City of Cape Town at the beginning of this week, were 36.2% full, down 0.6 percentage points on last week, and usage in the City of Cape Town an average of 602 million litres a day. This is 100 million litres a day more than the city would wish for, so a lot more conservation is needed.

Alister, ZS1OK, has posted a very comprehensive report on the City of Cape Town’s nuclear disaster exercise held this last Thursday. His long report includes photos of strategic positions occupied by disaster managers and HAMNET members, as well as well thought-out arguments on future exercises, and the kinds of digital communications we should be incorporating in these activities.

The report will be posted on our HAMNET website at hamnet.co.za, so do go and have a look there. Thank you for this, Alister.

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

City of Cape Town DRM Koeberg Nuclear Disaster Exercise 23 November 2017

Alister van Tonder ZS1OK writes:

HAMNET was invited to participate by the Disaster Risk Management of the City of Cape Town with their annual Koeberg Nuclear Disaster Exercise.  This was the first time we participated with this particular exercise and the second time we’ve participated with the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management exercises.

We had seven volunteers who participated, consisting of David zs1dav, Dean zs1kp, Hendrik zs1eee, Philip zs1pvv, Rob zs1sa, Stephen zs1bsw, and Alister zs1ok.

The exercise simulated a nuclear leak at Koeberg, and we had HAMNET personnel in the following roles:

  • Joint Operations Centre – Dean as a former mechanical engineer at Koeberg sat with the rest of the members in the JOC and from here all the aspects of the exercise was managed.

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Figure 1. A view of the various role players managing the exercise from the JOC

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Figure 2 The video walls inside the JOC depicting information relevant to the exercise

  • HAMNET Communications Room. Rob zs1sa and Stephen zs1bsw were behind the controls relaying messages as and when required, using the VHF/UHF and HF equipment.
  • Command Bus – David zs1dav represented HAMNET at the Command Bus, which at one stage departed at high speed to a new location quite some distance from where they were due them being put at “risk” by the a change in wind direction which carries “radiation” with it. Dave’s multi-faceted ability came to the rescue of some of the very hungry participants when he was able to open their tuna cans, which was part of the day’s ration packs, with his Leatherman.

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Figure 3 One of the two locations where the Command Bus was parked, together with various role players also taking part in the exercise.

  • Hendrik zs1eee and Philip zs1pvv were stationed at the Koeberg Volunteer Centre from where they operated on both VHF/UHF and HF.
  • Alister zs1ok was a part-time roving participant during the event. One of the advantages of living in Cape Town was setting up a cross-band repeater on Blouberg Hill .

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Figure 4 A cross-band repeater set up on Blouberg Hill – with a magnificent view from there

 

In general the exercise and the HAMNET participation went off well.  Everyone learnt a great deal in various ways, and since this was the first exercise of this nature with the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management there are several areas where we could definitely improve on.

 Feedback, Suggestions and Improvements

We would love to get more HAMNET operators to participate, despite the exercise being run during normal working hours.

We need to make use more of digital technologies, in particular systems that can be used to send text to other operators or participants.  This requirement is particularly relevant for information or formal communications issued from the JOC and the HAMNET Comms Room.  Using text based system is the best way to keep operators well informed without interrupting them with their parallel activities. An operator can re-read a text message rather than having to request a voice message to be resent for clarification.  Specific terminology can be used in a text based message which would be more difficult to convey in a standard voice message.  The other major advantage of a text based system is that it automatically provides a log of all messages, communication and whatever else needs to be recorded.

In prior discussions with ESCOM they expressed specific interest in HAMNET’s ability to offer backup communications because of their ability to transfer text messages and files (using digital modes, e.g. fldigi) as well as sending of emails (e.g. using Winlink) via radio.

The ability to provide nomadic HF comms rather than mobile HF comms.  We generally do not require HF comms to be used while driving a vehicle.  In this context an HF station requires the ability to up and leave to a new location within minutes.  The operator should therefore ideally operate from their vehicle or a go-box and all that is required is to pack away their HF antenna.  The operator must be able to set up to use 80m and 60m comms with the current propagation conditions.  During winter months being able to use 160m would also be required.

HF comms is important to test and maintain since there is a requirement with certain of the Koeberg exercises for the Koeberg region to be “vacated” and for the command teams to relocate to rural areas such as Citrusdal, Mooreesburg or even Ceres to get away from “nuclear fall-out and contamination”.  During such events it is vital to maintain comms via HF due to these areas not necessarily being served via VHF/UHF repeaters.

During a real Koeberg incident HAMNET would be required to assist for several days.  It is therefore important having sufficient HAMNET volunteers to permit operations to run over multiple days using 12 hour shifts.

  1. JOC – Joint Operations Center

Meticulous notes were maintained by Dean during the development of the exercise.

It was felt that using an electronic version of this which could automatically share vital information with all the HAMNET role players and would be of much more value than only using voice communications.

This concept was reinforced by the fact that it is impractical to use radio communication (handheld radio) in a controlled environment such as the JOC, and the audio from the radio caused disruptions.  Even using a headset with the radio was said to be impractical in this setup.

  1. HAMNET Communications Room

At least two operators are required for the Control room as there is just too much happening in parallel for one operator to manage appropriately.

Since it was the first time that both Rob zs1sa and Stephen zs1bsw operated from the HAMNET communications room they were not very familiar with the facility’s equipment despite them being skilled amateur radio operators.  During an emergency it is vital for operators know their equipment well and are able to optimally use the equipment.  It is not a static operating environment and there are ongoing changes required on the equipment.

Despite having sound dampening facilities, which is ideal for a very active comms control centre, the one drawback of the facility is that it is isolated from where real the rubber hits the road.  As a result they have insufficient information about the development exercise.  Having the text based system mentioned above would also greatly assist.

  1. Command Bus

It was the second time David zs1dav has been with the Command Bus and fortunately the staff operating from the bus were well informed of his presence and his role.  Since the bus may be redeployed to more suitable or different locations at any time it is vital for this HAMNET operator to be set up and proficient at using mobile comms.  Even their HF equipment needs to be setup such that they can redeploy at short notice – and merely recover their long wire antenna deployed from their vehicle.

  1. Volunteer Centre

Hendrik zs1eee and Philip zs1pvv are quite adept at setting up a station in a new location.  This was their first involvement at this facility and as we also intended testing HF communications, the HF antenna had to be set up in a manner that the environment remained safe for other staff participating in the event.  We did not want people to get RF burns from the antennas.

One of the drawbacks of using a cross-band repeater is that it does not provide any feedback (i.e. a whiplash) when pressing your PTT. Thus an operator using a cross-band repeater needs to have two radios – each one tuned to one of the frequencies of the cross-band repeater.  When transmitting on the one radio you should hear yourself on the other radio.

All the personnel at the Volunteer Centre were required to relocate to a new location necessitating moving the radio station elsewhere.  Thus this nomadic requirement makes the ability to have a go-box very practical.  Basically unplug your power (if you are only using mains), pack away your antenna, and load your equipment in the vehicle and move to the next location.

  1. Rover One

Alister zs1ok was mobile during part of the exercise, and being mobile leaves an operator with a limited ability to effectively participate with communications while driving.  You need a second person to assist –  either as driver or as communicator.  Particularly once you start using digital comms (text or graphics) it would be safer and better to have one to assist you.

Once again thank you to everyone on the team who made this event a learning event and an enjoyable one!!

Alister van Tonder  ZS1OK

HAMNET Report 19 November 2017

Inasmuch as solar weather can make the life of an emergency communicator very difficult, I thought I’d tell you about a proposed NASA mission to reveal unprecedented details about solar flares, powerful eruptions that explode with enough energy to interfere with radio communications and satellites near Earth.

The proposed mission, Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager, or FOXSI, was one of five proposals that received Phase-A funding under NASA’s Small Explorer Program.

Although scientists are familiar with the effects of solar flares, they don’t completely understand the physical mechanisms that unleash these bursts of energy and light, or those which power associated clouds of electrons and ions that can be accelerated to near the speed of light.

Once unleashed, the particles affect all the Sun’s atmospheric layers. They pass through the Sun’s outermost layer – the corona where they also are known to originate – and race across the solar system. When they travel toward Earth, the particles and energy can interfere with space-based communications systems or even trip onboard electronics. The more scientists understand this process, the more situational awareness they have to protect assets in space.

“FOXSI is very new and very different,” said Principal Investigator Steven Christe, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who leads the multinational FOXSI team developing the satellite mission.

“We’ve not done a mission like this before. For the first time, we’re going to actually peer into the region where electrons are accelerated by applying technology that was developed to study the faintest sources in the galaxy but now pointed at the Sun.”

The combination of new technologies used is expected to result in a mission that is 20 times more sensitive, 10 times faster at imaging solar-flare events, and 10 to 100 times better at imaging the relatively faint regions within flares.

Thank you to SPACE DAILY for these notes.

Business Day carried a report on Thursday about Western Cape Hospitals drilling new boreholes, or re-activating old ones, to provide extra water on their premises. Tygerberg, Karl Bremer, and Khayelitsha Hospitals have all augmented their supply of water from Province this way. The water is being used at health facilities for “cleaning linen‚ floors‚ toilets‚ scrubbing‚ disinfecting equipment‚ bathing‚ drinking and others”. Water from boreholes was tested at a laboratory for safety before use.

However‚ caution is needed. Chris Jack‚ a researcher at the Climate System Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town‚ said boreholes were helpful in times of a lack of municipal water supply, but that groundwater extraction “can have negative impacts such as land sinking‚ salt water intrusion in coastal areas like Cape Town‚ and a drop in water quality”.

The department is aware of this‚ and is being careful “not to exhaust the resource”.

And, according to the website of the National Drought Mitigation Centre in the US‚ “health problems related to low water flows and poor-quality water‚ and health problems related to dust‚ reduced incomes and fewer recreational activities” can be expected in any country where a drought unfolds.

Greg Mossop G0DUB reports that Emcomm SPAIN was active yesterday on 40 metres for their national EMCOMSET2k17. The exercise was organised as a “no notice” event, and ran all day. Operations took place around the 40 metre Centre of Activity of 7110 Khz, as well as on another frequency on 40 metres not being announced. They also used frequencies in VHF/UHF as well as DMR and Winlink.

HAMNET Western Cape has been contacted by the organisers of the annual el Shaddai 99er cycle tour in early February next year, who are looking for our usual contingent of volunteers and our APRS support for their ambulance system. So this is an early invitation to Capetonians to join me on the scene on Saturday the 10th February next year. We’ll be sending out further invitations locally.

Then, a reminder that HAMNET in the Western Cape will be assisting the City of Cape Town in a disaster exercise on Thursday the 23rd November. The scenario is a nuclear scare at Koeberg power station. At least 4 operators will be needed between 09h00 and 14h00 on that day, and Alister, ZS1OK will welcome your mail to volunteer at zs1ok.alister@gmail.com if you can help. His volunteer list is almost complete.

Finally, a further inspection of interesting units of measurement, and, in this case, one “New York Second”, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the car behind you hooting! A very short time indeed. Perhaps it should be used to describe the time between your signing your callsign on the repeater, and the other fellow answering you!

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

HAMNET Report 12 November 2017

This Sunday past, the 5th November, HAMNET Gauteng South, through their relationship with the organisers of the Emperors Palace Classic through Ekhuruleni in Johannesburg, were asked to assist with the first ever Tshwane Classic cycle race in Pretoria.

Glynn, ZS6GLN, tells me that, for a first ever event, over 4700 riders participated, with one of the VIP riders on the day being the mayor of Tshwane, who, we believe, rode the 20km event.

A call was put through to Johan de Bruyn (ZS6JHB), regional director of Gauteng North asking if his team would like to assist. Johan replied with 5 eager volunteers and assigned Brian Jacobs (ZS6YZ) as his fill in for the event. Brian and the Gauteng North team turned out to be an exceptional asset. Brian attended the briefing session with Glynn Chamberlain (ZS6GLN) on the Saturday morning and was perfectly placed to provide critical info on the route not only for HAMNET, but also the organisers who were not all fully familiar with Pretoria.

Furthermore, Chad Mileham (ZS6OPS) who is regional co-ordinator for the HAMNET Gauteng South West Rand group, forwarded the request to his team and another 5 members eagerly volunteered.

Everyone arrived on the Sunday morning for a team briefing at 04h30, and after formalities and the briefing had been given, everyone dispersed to their respective positions on the course.

Everyone was apprehensive as to how members from 3 different HAMNET groups who had never met before were going to work together. Well, the team matched the professionalism of many of our previous races in the past, and the interaction between the members was incredible. It is gratifying that, if groups are required to come together for a real emergency one day, they will operate like they did on the day.

In the end, there were some serious altercations and eventual hot spots. Brian (ZS6YZ) landed up in the thick of it when traffic at his intersection got out of hand. Barricades were being set up, rocks placed on the roads and stones thrown at the TMPD (Tshwane Metro Police Department). Through Brian’s immediate reports back, Police and Metro Police manning the JOCC and listening to Brian’s reports were incredibly swift to deploy additional support to the intersection and bring it back under control. To say the JOCC got quite active is an understatement.

While this was happening, HAMNET resources that were stationed at other intersections with fewer issues were deployed north to possibly assist with a route change because of the issues at Brian’s intersection. The rendezvous for these teams was the intersection of Paul Kruger and Mansfield Avenue, two major arterials. Unbelievably, the situation there started deteriorating with the police battling to control motorists. By the time HAMNET members started arriving there for the possible re-route, Brian’s intersection was under control, so they jumped in to assist the police right there. In the end, there were Anette (ZR6D), Awie  (ZS6AVI), Francois (ZS6COI), and Judy (ZS6JDY), with later support from Leon (ZS6LMG) and Johan (ZS6DMX), all ably controlled by Rory Crouch (ZS6RBJ) who constantly gave and received instructions from the JOCC and communicated with the impromptu team who were now assisting in the intersection. In order not to overload the JOCC frequency, Rory managed a sub net amongst the team members on scene and became the one communications point between the JOCC and everyone on the intersection. Well done Rory!

To summarise, the comments received from the team members were fantastic. They all thoroughly enjoyed the day and experienced something completely new and enjoyable. Both Leon and Glynn felt the cream on the cake was seeing how well three separate HAMNET groups could interact in such a friendly and professional manner. And, new friendships were forged in a wonderful hobby helping with community service and self-sacrifice.

Thank you Glynn for the comprehensive report. It sounds like you all had a day of many and varied experiences!

News of future exercises comes from Alister ZS1OK, who tells us that the City of Cape Town will be running a disaster exercise on Thursday the 23rd November. Alister says at least 4 HAMNET volunteers are required to assist, each at a different permanent or mobile control centre, from 09h00 until 14h00 that day. John Bayly Brown, the CoCT Volunteer coordinator, has promised to provide a letter to employers motivating and stating the role HAMNET volunteers will have during the exercise.

If you can take time off on a Thursday, please contact Alister at zs1ok.alister@gmail.com. Thank you.

In a more humorous vein, some of you will know that Helen of Troy had beauty which was enough to launch a thousand Greek ships to rescue her from Troy. You’ll therefore understand that one milliHelen is the amount of beauty required to launch one ship. David Goines “Helen Beauty Scale” defines a microHelen as enough beauty to Christen a motorboat and start a grass fire, and a gigaHelen as enough to launch one trillion Greek warships and destroy the solar system. In similar vein, a picture paints a thousand words, and a millipicture therefore paints one word, and Carl Sagan, who narrated the original “Cosmos” and was always describing things in terms of “billions and billions”, has had his name immortalised as being equivalent to an impossibly large quantity of anything and everything! Thank you to Wikipaedia for these units of measurement.

I wonder whether a milliHAMNET member could be defined as someone who can get the message through using just one word…….

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

HAMNET Report 5 November 2017

Glynn Chamberlain, ZS6GLN, Deputy Regional Director, HAMNET Gauteng South, tells us that Hamnet exhibited at the Southern African Emergency Services Institute (SAESI) expo at Nasrec Expo Centre in the south of Johannesburg from Wednesday the 1st of November till Friday the 3rd November inclusive.

Hamnet Gauteng South had their forward control centre on show together with other equipment used in community events and disaster situations.

This is the first of hopefully many expos that Hamnet will be participating in to spread the word of emergency communications in disaster and community events.

For more info on SAESI, visit https://www.saesi.com/. Thanks, Glynn.

Continuing my references to space and radio signals, consider the case of the two Voyager spacecraft, which have left the solar system and are currently in interstellar space. Voyager one and two are about 20 Billion Kilometres and 16 Billion Kilometres away from us respectively, and a round trip to send and receive the results of a command to and from either of them takes about 39 hours. They were launched in 1977, completed their solar system tasks in the 1980’s, and have been travelling outwards ever since.

The fact that their signals can still be received is a tribute to the antennas they carry and transmit to, and those are the figures I’d like to bring to your attention today.

The signal path loss for Voyager one, using one of its comms frequencies of 2.3 GHz, has been calculated at 306.6dB. Voyager’s 3.7m parabolic dish antenna has a gain of 57 dB, but the strength of its transmitted signal is only 23 watts. However, at the receiving end, NASA’s Deep Space Network has three sites, at Goldstone, Canberra and Madrid, each of which has  three or more large dish antennas, the biggest of which is 70 metres in diameter, giving it 82 dB of gain.

No matter how strong the signal, it is the quality of the antenna which guarantees the reception of the signal. And the greater the gain, the narrower the beamwidth, so the antennas need to be pointed exactly at each other to hear each other. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the success of any radio system lies with the antennas. In the case of the Voyagers, there’s nothing to be done about the speed of travel of the message, at the speed of light, so those astronomers need to be patient and wait the 39 hours!

Thank you to Microwaves & RF for the details in this insert.

Now, here’s something for the scientists amongst you. In the ARRL letter for November the 2nd, HamSCI – the Amateur Radio citizen science initiative – has announced a 2-day workshop February 23-24, 2018, at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark. HamSCI’s Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, has posted a survey to gauge interest and potential attendance.

“We are inviting all hams and scientists interested in ham radio science,” Frissell said. “The aim of this workshop is to foster collaborations between the ham radio and the space science and space weather research communities through presentations, discussions, and demonstrations. This year’s meeting will focus on solar eclipse analysis, ham radio data sources and databases, and the development of a ‘personal space weather station.'”

Frissell, an NJIT assistant research professor, invited presentations from within the Amateur Radio community. “We will also accept submissions of abstracts and demonstrations of other topics that are of interest to ham radio and ionospheric science,” he said. “The solar eclipse topic is a follow-up to this summer’s total solar eclipse and the Solar Eclipse QSO Party (SEQP). We hope to have presentations from both ham radio operators and professional scientists showing the data that they have collected and what they think it means.”

The tentative schedule calls for oral presentations on “Ham Radio Data Sources, Databases Analysis” and “Solar Eclipse Effects on the Ionosphere, including results from the Solar Eclipse QSO Party.” Phil Erickson, W1PJE, of MIT’s Haystack Observatory is scheduled to be the Friday evening banquet speaker. Tutorials on Saturday will include “Ham Radio for Space Scientists,” with Frank Donovan, W3LPL, and “Space Science for Ham Radio Operators” (speaker pending).

Frissell said HamSCI would like to encourage development of the “Personal Space Weather Station” concept. “This is analogous to a personal weather station that people install at their homes to measure temperature, wind speed, rainfall, and humidity, and report this data to groups like the NWS, NOAA, and Weather Underground,” Frissell said. “We want to create a similar package for space weather and have that data go to a single repository.”

“An ideal personal space weather station would likely include instruments able to detect things such as traveling ionospheric disturbances, radio blackouts, propagation changes, lightning, and magnetospheric activity, Frissell said. It would probably include, at a minimum, a wideband software-defined radio, a magnetometer, a timing source, and a computer — all currently available, but not as an integrated package, he pointed out.

At the February workshop, HamSCI wants to better define the capabilities of a personal space weather station as well as how to implement the concept. “HamSCI will be teaming up with TAPR to do this,” Frissell said. “Scientists will talk about what science topics the device should be able to measure, and TAPR will discuss how to actually design and implement the device.”

Frissell said he hopes hams attending will come away more knowledgeable about ionospheric and space science, and scientists will gain a better understanding of Amateur Radio.

So there’s a nice challenge for you!

A quick dam report for the Western Cape. The dam levels have subsided with 0.1percentage point, which is a relief, and other good news is that the water quality compliance is 99.59%, above the 98% target, so whatever comes out of the taps is drinkable! We squirm uneasily in our chairs as we watch the sky for clouds!

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