As mentioned last week, Tonga has been in a cleft-stick situation, needing aid from the world after their devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami disaster, but finding that all the nearby countries that can bring aid have sailors on board their ships suffering currently from COVID-19.

Two New Zealand warships were due to dock and unload their supplies without making any person-to-person contact with the Tongans, and now an Australian warship has also found 29 sufferers in its crew on their way to assist. So they will also offload their supplies, and leave immediately.

In turn, Tonga will leave the supplies on the harbour untouched for 3 days, to allow any viral contamination to die out before they will even consider coming near the supplies. Given that they have had one patient with COVID so far, the nation is totally naïve to the virus, and Omicron will burn through the population like wildfire if it gets a chance.

The volcano has burped and rumbled apparently since the original eruption, but not repeated its original outburst. Here’s hoping.

I mentioned Tropical Cyclone ANA last week, crossing Madagascar and then the Mozambique Channel to damage the East coast of Southern Africa.

Well, by Friday of this week, GDACS was reporting that, following the passage of the storm over Madagascar, at least 41 people had died there, more than 110,000 people were affected in seven regions and almost 72,000 were displaced. 90 accommodation sites were hosting 55,859 persons. The Analamanga region remains the epicentre of the damage, where 8,927 housing units were flooded.

In Mozambique, some 45,400 people were affected, 99 people injured and 15 people died. A total of 7,315 private houses were partially destroyed, and 2,765 totally destroyed. 12 health centres and 346 classrooms have been damaged, which impacted 27,383 students.

And, in Malawi, at least 11 people died, 107 were injured and nearly 217,000 people affected. In Chikwawa district, 10,159 people are hosted in 44 camps. Major identified needs are: food, clean water, shelter, health system support, and reconstruction of affected infrastructure.

As of Friday, no major impact was reported in Zimbabwe, but reports of infrastructure damage had been received.

All in all, this was no minor storm.

Coming from Honolulu, Hawaii News Now reports that the state has partnered with the Hawaii Foodservice Alliance to launch the first-ever “disaster recovery pod” to hold a stockpile of food in case of emergencies.

Officials said what they called the “pre-covery pod” can hold about 135,000 meals for vulnerable communities in the event a natural disaster shuts down ports.

The insulated storage container, in which food can be stored for up to 25 years, will be able to feed residents while supply chains are being restored.

“This gives us a really long shelf life. If you don’t have to use it, we don’t have to keep paying for resupply,” said Jennifer Walter of the Honolulu Department of Emergency Management.

“So, the most important thing is that it’s in place before something happens and we’re not waiting days or weeks for those resources to come in.”

The Hawaii Foodservice Alliance said it plans to donate the first pre-covery pod to the Waianae community where it will be maintained by the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Centre.

The company said it hopes the pod will be one of many that will be placed in various locations throughout the state.

What a good idea, provided of course that the storage for 25 years is hygienic and safe.

Here’s a nice story about a QRP operator who is nothing if not tenacious. From August 5, 1994, to December 20, 2021 — a span of nearly 10,000 days — ARRL member John Shannon, K3WWP, of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, made at least one CW contact per day while running 5 W or less to simple wire antennas. That includes one that’s in his attic.

Over the course of said 10,000 days, Shannon made 72,190 contacts with 20,098 unique stations. For at least 2,099 of his contacts, his signal travelled 1,600 or more kilometres per W, while another 24,098 were DX contacts made in 224 DXCC entities. He contacted all 50 states “many times over” — he made 3,819 contacts with stations in Pennsylvania alone, and 63 contacts with stations in Wyoming.

Shannon reports that the DX country he contacted most often was Germany, with 1,934 contacts. By continent, his contact totals ranged from 52,639 with stations in North America to 325 with stations in Oceania, plus 18 with stations in Antarctica. The number of contacts he made on each band used includes 19,279 on 40 meters; 15,459 on 20 meters; 28 on 60 meters, and 39 on 6 meters.

Within his first UTC hour of operation each day, Shannon logged nearly 73% of his daily contacts.

He also experienced a DX streak from March 1, 2013 through to August 1, 2018, which was a total of 1,980 days. During this time, he contacted at least one DX station per day.

Shannon said that the greatest satisfaction he’s derived from his operating streak is that other hams express that he inspired their interest in, and enjoyment of CW and/or QRP operating. Shannon said his streak is not over. He intends to continue making daily contacts for 11,000 or 12,000 days.

Thanks to the ARRL letter of this week for the excerpt. I can almost see all the CW operators in this country fist-pumping in the air, as I report on this!

And a weekly report back on WSJT, or rather JWST. The space telescope arrived at Lagrange point 2 on Monday evening, our time, and was directed to go into a little circular orbit around that spot, so that its solar panels on the “hot” underbelly of the telescope are mostly bathed in sunlight, allowing batteries to be charged.

For the next several months the angle of each of the 18 little hexagonal mirrors will be tweaked, so that they all reflect infrared exactly on to the same spot on the secondary mirror, and thence down through the hole in the middle of the primary mirror and into the sensor equipment area, behind the primary.

While this is on the go, the electronics in the sensor area will be cooled down from wherever they are now to about -266 degrees Celsius (or 7 degrees Kelvin), with the help of the Helium cooling unit, and then calibration of the instruments can begin.

Nerve-wracking stuff for the radio-astronomers, for whom no one single thing must go wrong now.

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

From Australia we hear that, following extensive floods that continue to affect south-eastern Queensland and coastal New South Wales, the number of fatalities stands at 14 people.

According to media, around 500,000 people across Greater Sydney Area have been ordered to evacuate, as the Hawkesbury River reached major flood level at North Richmond. More than 300 schools in New South Wales remain closed and households along the Hawkesbury, Nepean and Colo Rivers have experienced power outages.

Water releases are occurring from several dams across south-eastern Queensland and eastern New South Wales, including those in Greater Sydney Area.

These are the areas of Australia currently experiencing the highest COVID numbers, so this is a double disaster for them.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ, our Deputy National Director of HAMNET, has sent out a message this week reminding all of the HAMNET 40m contest this afternoon the 6^th March. He asks all regional directors to encourage their members to get on the air. It is a great opportunity to test out their stations and check out the propagation as well.

He notes that details of the contest are in the Contest Manual for easy reference, and hopes to make contact with many HAMNET members this afternoon.

Coincidentally, my Grandson turns two today, and I wouldn’t miss the candles and the cake this afternoon for anything! Happy Birthday, James!

The ARRL Letter of March the 3^rd notes that Radio amateurs in Ukraine appear to be diligently maintaining radio silence as the state of emergency declared there just prior to the Russian military invasion remains in effect. A February 24 decree from President Volodymyr Zelensky included “a ban on the operation of amateur radio transmitters for personal and collective use.” The Ukraine Amateur Radio League (UARL/LRU) reported this past week that it has received many messages of encouragement from the worldwide amateur radio community.

“The LRU informed international amateur radio organizations about Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine,” said the message from UARL Vice President Anatoly Kirilenko, UT3UY. “To date, there have been many reports from radio amateurs around the world in support of Ukraine.”

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has adopted a neutral stance. “IARU is an apolitical organization focused on promoting and defending amateur radio and the amateur radio services,” the IARU said. “The amateur radio service is about self-instruction in communications and friendship between people.” IARU Region 1 has said it continues to monitor the development and expect all radio amateurs “to follow their national laws and regulations.”

IARU Region 1 also re-posted part of an advisory from the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club HF Committee on February 27. “Any radio amateur currently transmitting from Ukraine is risking his or her life. If you hear a Ukrainian station, do not broadcast its call sign, location, or frequency – whether on the band, in a cluster, or on social media. You may be putting lives at risk.” The DARC’s overarching advice is: “In the current situation, the best we can do is listen.”

Ukraine’s assigned amateur radio call sign prefixes include EMA – EOZ and the more commonplace URA – UZZ. Some stations with Ukrainian call signs may still be active, since an exception to the amateur radio ban was made for stations in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine (eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts), which have special legal status owing to Russia’s occupation since 2014.

The same Letter from the ARRL refers to work done in Spain. Their IARU member society URE reports that extensive work is underway to make URESAT-1 available before the end of the year. If all goes according to plan, URESAT-1 will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in October 2022.

URE says URESAT-1 is based on the architecture used in the AMSAT-EA GENESIS, EASAT-2, and HADES missions but with significant improvements, such as a 32-bit computer, and enhancements in the deployment mechanism, antennas, and batteries. URESAT-1 will carry a VHF/UHF FM ham radio repeater as well as digipeating capability of AX.25 and APRS. URE says the payload is not yet defined but could be the same slow-scan television (SSTV) camera that flies in HADES, a thruster, or some kind of experiment. One confirmed project is a chess game that will allow radio amateurs to play against the on-board computer via FSK telemetry.

Several radio amateurs are working on the project, and if it is completed by the time the satellite is due to be delivered, it will be included. URE has created a blog in Spanish, where the status of the project is being reported.

So for those of you who know your knights from your rooks, this might be good fun!

Southgate Amateur Radio News reports that 22 stations representing 14 countries in IARU Region 1 took part in a short notice exercise using the geostationary satellite QO-100 amateur radio transponder on 26^th February.

IARU Region 1 Emergency Communications Co-Ordinator Greg Mossop G0DUB has posted:

“This was the first of a number of smaller exercises, tests and meetings to be held by IARU Region 1 throughout the year, building on the earlier Global Simulated Emergency Tests to cover as many aspects of emergency communications as possible.

“The intention is to bring emergency communicators together more frequently to demonstrate how the Amateur Radio Service can work together as a global community and develop a common understanding of each other’s’ capabilities.

The exercise on QO-100 was felt to be a success with a number of formal messages being passed between stations along with some learning from the inevitable challenges of equipment failures, language barriers and co-ordination of an exercise whose coverage area extends from South Africa to the United Kingdom. Once all the exercise feedback is received, the next test on that system is planned to take place in October this year.

QO-100 brings another asset to the emergency communications toolbox in Region 1 and its presence is much appreciated.

It is hoped that all South African HAMNET regions will soon be equipped with QO-100 capable stations to be able to benefit fully from these exercises.

This is Grandpa-saurus Dave ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.