HAMNET Report 28th July 2024

The Tropical Cyclone on the lips of everybody in the region of the South China Sea is called GAEMI, and reports have been issued on a daily basis since Monday the 22nd. It arose due east of the northern islands of the Philippines, and has been taking a slightly curly course north-westward, brushing past the Philippine island of Luzon, and then smacking the northeastern half of Taiwan directly on Thursday the 25th. Winds of up to 220km/h have been experienced as GAEMI hits landmasses.

From there it was aiming for the Chinese mainland, due to arrive on Friday, and carrying on directly north-west over the inland territories before weakening. 24 million people were said to be in its direct line of attack, and, by Friday afternoon, 2 ships had sunk, one with a huge amount of industrial fuel oil on board and causing a major oil slick about 7 km long, just a few kilometres from the coast of Philippines and near Manila. Evacuations in Taiwan and neighbouring areas numbered about 25000, while 629000 people in the Philippines had been displaced by Friday. Heavy rain to very heavy rainfall and strong winds are still forecast across the whole of Taiwan, south-eastern China, southern Ryukyu Islands and north-western Philippines. Typhoon warnings are still in effect over Taiwan and south-eastern China. 

And focustaiwan.tw says that this year’s Han Kuang military exercises have been cut short as troops were mobilized to assist in disaster relief in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi, the Ministry of National Defence (MND) said on Thursday.

Multiple drills scheduled between noon on Thursday and Friday — when the five-day exercises were originally scheduled to conclude — have been cancelled, and table-top war games will be conducted instead, the MND said.

Troops previously assigned to participate in the drills will now assist local governments in disaster relief to ensure people and their properties remain safe, the MND added.

An article in thehindu.com, says that twenty amateur radio operators from various parts of Thrissur have expressed their willingness to join the rescue operation under way at the site of a landslip at Shirur in Karnataka.

In a letter to the authorities concerned, they offered to render technical and communication support in connection with ongoing rescue operations at the site, where a trucker from Kerala is missing among three others.

“We are a group of WPC (wireless planning and coordination) licensed operators, who have been associating with district disaster management authority in Thrissur. We have successfully operated during 2018 floods in Kerala and landslip rescue operations in Pettimudi. Since 2009, we have been providing communication support to district emergency operations centre, Thrissur, in coordinating various departments for smooth functioning of Thrissur pooram, the largest gathering in South India. We can operate under stressful situations with utmost precision and accuracy,” they pointed out.

They urged the State authorities to give them permission to assist the Karnataka government’s rescue team.

It is great to see the radio amateurs volunteering without being asked for help.

Further advances in Laser Communications are reported on in theverge.com, which says that NASA researchers have successfully tested laser communications in space by streaming 4K video footage originating from an airplane in the sky to the International Space Station and back.

The feat demonstrates that the space agency could provide live coverage of a Moon landing during the Artemis missions and bodes well for the development of optical communications that could connect humans to Mars and beyond. NASA normally uses radio waves to send data and talk between the earth and space but says that laser communications using infrared light can transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than radios.

Engineers fitted an airplane with a portable laser terminal, then flew it over Lake Erie and sent data back to the centre in Cleveland. The data was then transmitted through a terrestrial network to NASA’s New Mexico test facility, where scientists controlled the process of beaming data up to the agency’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) satellite 22,000 miles away. The LCRD then relayed it to the ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) on the ISS.

All rather convoluted really, but I hope you get the gist. A moon landing in 4K video would be a huge improvement on the grainy TV pictures when Neil Armstrong jumped off the bottom rung of his ladder in 1969.

In another Hackaday article, Al Williams asks if shortwave is on life support.

 He says: “Between World War II and Y2K, shortwave listening was quite an education. With a simple receiver, you could listen to the world. Some of it, of course, was entertainment, and much of it was propaganda of one sort or another. But you could learn a lot. Kids with shortwave radios always did great in geography. Getting the news from a different perspective is often illuminating, too. Learning about other cultures and people in such a direct way is priceless. Getting a QSL card in the mail from a faraway land seemed very exciting back then.

“Today, the shortwave landscape is a mere shadow of itself. According to a Wikipedia page, there are 235 active shortwave broadcasters from a list of 414, so nearly half are defunct. Not only are there many “dead” shortwave outlets, but many of the ones that are left are either not aimed at the world market or serve a niche group of listeners.

“You can argue that with the Internet, you don’t need radio, and that’s probably correct in some ways but misses a few important points. Indeed, many broadcasters still exist as streaming stations or a mix of radio and streaming

“So, while a 14-year-old in 1975 might be hunched over a radio wearing headphones, straining to hear NHK World Radio, these days, he is likely surfing the popular social media site of the week. You could easily argue that content on YouTube, Instagram, and the like can come from all over the world, so what’s the problem?

“The problem is information overload. Faced with a shortwave radio, there were a limited number of options available. What’s more, only a small part of the band might be “open” at any given time. It isn’t like the radio could play games or — unless you were a ham — allow you to chat with your friends. So you found radio stations from Germany to South Africa, from China and Russia, to Canada and Mexico. You knew the capital of Albania. You learned a little Dutch from Radio Nederlands.

“Is there an answer? Probably not. Radio isn’t coming back, barring an apocalyptic event. Sure, you can listen to the BBC on your computer, but you probably won’t. You can even listen to a radio over the network, but that isn’t going to draw in people who aren’t already interested in radio, even if it really looks like a radio.”

What a pity!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR on another soggy Cape day, reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

HAMNET Report 21st July 2024

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake struck Chile close to the Bolivian border on Friday morning the 19th July at 03h50 Central African time, exposing a population of about 140000 to Magnitude 7 shaking. By Friday evening, no reports of casualties had trickled through yet

You will have noted that two South African provinces were declared disaster areas this week, and for opposite reasons. KwaZulu Natal had parts of the province given disaster status as a result of extreme heat and uncontrollable fires, which claimed some lives amongst firefighters and the public, and the weather hasn’t abated there yet, so disaster management teams and firefighters remain on alert.

And the Western Cape was declared a disaster area as a result of very high rainfall, and damaging winds and storm surges, after a succession of cold fronts battered the Cape. As I mentioned last week, the informal settlements scattered along river banks and in low-lying areas were generally washed away, and this week, starter kits of materials with which to rebuild houses were issued out to many destitute residents.

And rain-wise, this week was no better. I live in a central Peninsular area, where rainfall is usually milder than the classical wet areas, like Newlands and Rondebosch, but even I broke my previous records for the most rain in one calendar month, since I started keeping records in 2001. Since Wednesday the 3rd of July, I have recorded 271 mm of rain, soundly beating my previous record of 247 in August 2013. And we still have another 10 days of July to get through. In the last six days, I have recorded 144mm, but I’m sure places like Newlands, the Tygerberg and the catchment areas of the main dams serving the Western Cape will have experienced 2-3 times as much. I believed those same dam’s increased their levels by 20 percentage points this week alone.

I give thanks that our rain doesn’t all arrive in one day, like KZN experiences, and bridge wash-aways and loss of life is not as marked. Meanwhile, the inland high ground is threatened with snowfalls, particularly over the Ceres, Cedarberg and Koue Bokkeveld area, as well as the Sani Pass and Giant’s Castle portion of the Drakensberg, and the south-eastern tip of Lesotho. Winter ain’t over yet!

BBC.com pertinently asks the question: Do tornadoes or hailstones do more damage?

The world is devastated by 1000’s of tornadoes each year. Yet, in 2023, heat claimed more than double the fatalities caused by tornadoes, surprisingly, and hail can account for 60-80% of insured losses from thunderstorms – more than tornadoes do.

To those who have only experienced mild hail, the icy sprinkles may seem harmless by comparison. But hail can unleash a torrent of chaos. In June, a plane travelling from Spain to Austria had its nose cone ripped away and its cockpit windows smashed after flying into a hail storm. In 2018, softball-sized ice pummelled a Colorado zoo, killing two birds and injuring 14 people. And, although rare, hail can be fatal to humans too, with eight deaths recorded in the last 70 years.

Tornadoes get a lot of publicity, but hailstorms can span kilometres and last hours, and do far more general damage. Their reach and frequency means hail storms are a particular challenge for the insurance industry. According to Ian Giammanco, a meteorologist and managing director of standards and analytics at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), only about 10% of all hail-producing thunderstorms cause damage – but those that do, wreak havoc, with hail accounting for “more than $10bn in the Americas in insured losses every year since 2008”.

At just 2.5cm hail can start to damage vegetation, Giammanco says. By 3.8cm, it can dent cars and older, shingle roofs. By 5cm it cracks car windshields and damages most building materials typically used in US construction. Bigger than 5cm, hail has the potential to crack plywood decking and at 10cm it can come through your roof.

Climate change is strengthening storm updrafts, according to an upcoming paper by Prof Vittorio Gensini and colleagues. Updrafts work like a hairdryer pointing upwards, Gensini explains; the stronger the thrust of air, the larger the ice-ball you could balance at its top. Therefore as the updrafts become stronger, bigger hailstones can be created. However, the warming climate is also causing more, smaller hailstones to melt before they hit the ground, he counters. 

Unfortunately, the two threats – hail and tornadoes – commonly are found close together. The strongest, rotating and tornado-forming thunderstorms – known as supercells – are produced by the same atmospheric conditions that are also likely to create hail. 

So in essence, you get whacked on the roundabouts as well as on the swings!

Very exciting this week was the monitoring of the sunspot number, which on Thursday, Friday and Saturday reached a staggering figure of 275 (gathered together in groups of course), only 10 sunspots less than the record of 285 measured during the peak of solar cycle 19, in March 1958, the best solar cycle ham radio has ever experienced. I personally listened to one of my Elmers working Hawaii (KH6) on 2watts USB on 20 metres from ZS5-land at that time! Let’s hope it happens this cycle too. Folks, turn on your radios and listen around!

In a short paragraph written for Hackaday by Jenny List, she wonders whether hackers are the future of amateur radio.

She says “If amateur radio has a problem, it’s that shaking off an image of being the exclusive preserve of old men with shiny radios talking about old times, remains a challenge. Especially, considering that so many amateurs are old men who like to talk a lot about old times. It’s difficult to attract new radio amateurs in the age of the Internet, so some in the hobby are trying new avenues. Dan, KB6NU went to the recent HOPE conference to evangelise amateur radio, and came away having had some success. We agree with him, hackers can be the future of amateur radio.

“In the slides from his talk, he goes through all the crossovers between the two communities from Arduinos to GNU Radio. We don’t need persuading; in fact we’d have added UHF and microwave RF circuitry and pushing the limits of the atmosphere with digital modes such as WSPR to the list as our personal favourites. It seems he found willing converts, and it’s certainly a theme we’ve featured before here at Hackaday. After all, unless it retains its interest, amateur radio could just die away.”

I’m not sure that amateur radio will just die away, but I do agree that the hacker mentality will certainly add to the enterprising spirit needed to keep amateur radio interesting to the new ham. What do you think?

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting from a soggy Cape Town for HAMNET in South Africa.

HAMNET Report 14th July 2024

Over last weekend, Tropical Cyclone BERYL, which had weakened as it drifted west-north-west towards Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, changed its mind, turned sharp right and swept across about 50 of Texas’ lower counties. A state of disaster in that half of Texas was declared last Friday, as the storm brought the potential for damaging winds, heavy rainfall and a storm surge that could push waters up by a couple of metres along the Texas coastline.

The Global Disaster Alert and Coordination Centre (GDACS) summarizes the final statistics arising from the hurricane as including 28 fatalities in various countries and many thousands of affected or displaced persons. What was unusual about Beryl was how early in the hurricane season such a severe storm arose, and how quickly it transformed from a storm warning to a stage 5 hurricane. I hope this is not a forewarning of things to come this season.

In other parts of the US, extreme temperatures were being measured. In Arizona’s Death Valley, the record for the highest temperature ever recorded there was broken this week, at a touch over 53 degrees Celsius! And apparently some people were foolish enough to congregate there just to be able to experience the heat, in the knowledge that their vehicles might overheat, and blow a head gasket, trapping them in the life-threatening temperatures. There doesn’t appear to be any medication for madness!

Meanwhile, the South African weather services were warning of a series of cold fronts, striking the south western Cape coastline in quick succession, and bringing heavy rains, very strong winds, and flooding to low-lying areas.

And, as you have most probably seen, the Municipality of Cape Town, plus Stellenbosch and Overberg municipalities were devastated by huge amounts of rainfall, of the order of 200-300 mm of rain between last Sunday the 7th and today. Masses of homes were flooded, families had to be evacuated away to dry community halls and rescue centres, roads and embankments were washed away, trees were uprooted, and infrastructure like clean water supply and electricity devastated.

It is not over yet. Another 40mm of rain is forecast between today and the end of this coming week, before the cloud and precipitation leaves us. I don’t think the Western Cape experiences those flash-flood type storms that strike the border areas with Mozambique and in KZN for example. We don’t experience such loss of life, but the effect of the weather and the very cold winter months make surviving in a wet home, with nothing dry to keep warm under, or even wear, very unpleasant, and contribute to a different type of disaster that takes many weeks to recover from.

Unfortunately the citizens in the areas who suffer the most are the informal dwellers, who have to be content with self-built non-waterproof shacks on low-lying ground, and it doesn’t take more than a rise of 50cm in the water table to flood all the dwellings. Disaster Management Agencies in the province run round in circles, helping in area after area, just in time for the next cold front to strike, and the next informal settlement to be flooded.

We hope to see the end to this rash of cold fronts during the course of the coming week. Of course, maximum temperatures don’t get much above 14 degrees, and humidity remains in the 80 to 90 percent range, so nothing dries, even though it is not raining. Very dismal indeed.

HAMNET Western Cape has been on standby, and nets on HF have continued, to make sure that outlying hams are safe, and also to make sure message traffic can be passed if areas get cut off. So far, we have not been needed. Luckily, in this weather, people are not foolish enough to try hiking up Table Mountain, so searches and rescues have been down to the minimum. The Table Mountain Cable Car system is not running anyway, as it undergoes its annual maintenance in July, so people realize that if they walk up Table Mountain, they’re jolly well going to have to walk down again, and a slippery mountain is a treacherous mountain!

The cold Antarctic air that always comes in after a major cold front in the Western Cape, is responsible for snow alerts for the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape, and Free State, as well as very cold conditions in the northern Provinces, as well as for the strong winds and veld fire warnings in KZN, which has their disaster management agencies also on high alert.

Meanwhile, Dr Imtiaaz Sooliman, of “Gift of the Givers” has repeated his call for a single organization countrywide to manage disasters. He says that, with disaster management on many tiers in each province, and often on different tiers in each province, it becomes very difficult to know how best to respond, and who to approach for the right kind of governmental response, or disaster funding in each province. Things are too fragmented, he says.

Often he has wondered “who is in charge?”, and notes that with many agencies with varying degrees of capability, it is easy for responsibility to be passed on to someone else, thereby shifting “blame” when reactions to disasters are being orchestrated.

The ARRL has distributed a paragraph saying that, at Ham Radio 2024, the International amateur radio exhibition, last week in Friedrichshafen, Germany, the Software Defined Radio Academy (SDRA) celebrated its 10-year anniversary. Founded in 2014, the SDRA has become a new platform for the exchange of knowledge surrounding software defined radio. In the early years, the academy’s lectures were recorded with primitive camera technology, but today a video team takes the recordings to a completely different level. The SDRA’s YouTube channel now has 150 uploads, 4850 subscribers, and many more views of the videos.

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

HAMNET Report 7th July 2024

Last Saturday the 29th of June, messages started arriving of the first big Tropical Cyclone of the season in the Caribbean rearing its head. Named BERYL, it was travelling virtually due West and threatening Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and eventually Mexico with winds of up to 270km/h. The alert level was classified RED.

By Wednesday, the Hurricane Watch Net had been activated at the National Hurricane Centre, to watch BERYL, now classified as a Category 4 storm, saying that it was expected to make landfall in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico by Friday. WX4NHC was monitoring 14.325MHz and 7.268MHz as its primary frequencies.

2.3 million persons were in its expected path. Jamaica declared a 7 day state of disaster from Wednesday to cover the expected duration of severe weather over the island and imposed an island-wide curfew between 06h00 and 18h00 local time on Wednesday to reduce the likelihood of unnecessary injuries during the severity of the storm.

By Friday, GDACS had tallied up seven fatalities, five persons missing and 500 evacuated to shelters in Jamaica.

Greg Mossop G0DUB of IARU Region One issued a long list of emergency HF frequencies being used by amateurs in most of the Caribbean Islands, too long a list to quote here. He asks for IARU Region One stations to exercise restraint, and listen carefully on 80, 40 and 20 metres for any stations low down in the noise before using these bands. You may be interfering with emergency communications.

BERYL weakened as it moved towards Mexico, where it was classified as a Category Two hurricane. Still bad enough!

And in Cape Town, Michael ZS1MJT, our Regional Director has announced that Disaster Risk Management has asked HAMNET members to be on standby this weekend, as Level Six warnings were issued for severe weather today Sunday in the peninsula and along the Southern Cape coast. We ran an hourly net on 7110 kHz from yesterday afternoon the 6th July, starting at 15h00 and interfering with the rugby until 19h00!

Ahead of this weather, the previous cold front brought icy conditions with it, likely to bring snowfalls over the mountainous regions of the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, and extending into parts of the Northern Cape and Free State. Definitely time to unpack your long-johns for later use.

In another of his very comprehensive reports about the Scottburgh to Brighton Surf Ski Marathon, Keith Lowes ZS5WFD, Regional Director for HAMNET KZN says that they could not have wished for better weather conditions last Sunday the 30th. There was a light South Westerly blowing, and surf conditions were less than 1 metre.

Race Control was managed by Deputy Provincial Director Duncan ZS5DGR and Jitesh ZS5JM situated in Athlone Park Amanzimtoti at the QTH of Steve ZS5SH.

A team of 17 Hamnet-KZN operators were deployed to manage the safety of the event over the 46Km route.  Roeloff ZS5RPC reported that twelve single ski’s started at “Scottburgh” at 06H30 followed by fourteen doubles at 07H00.

It was compulsory for all competitors to have the App “SafeTrx” active on their cellular phones secured in a waterproof pouch.  This was monitored by the NSRI for any emergency activation.  I am pleased to report that NO activations were received. Eight inflatable rescue boats (IRB’s) and two Jet Ski’s monitored the competitors from a safe distance to minimise the risk of exhaust fumes impacting the paddlers.  The IRB’s were in contact with each other with newly purchased vhf commercial radios.

Next stop was “Green Point” which was under the watchful eye of Assistant Provincial Director Sid ZS5AYC and his team of Louis ZS5LS and Craig ZS6CHT. “Umkomaas” was covered by Mark ZS5JE and Paul ZS5PAH; “Winkelspruit” saw Geoff ZS5AGM and Val ZS5VAL positioned on the upper level of the Surf Lifesaving Club, giving them a great vantage point to view the race. A compulsory check-in at “Amanzimtoti” was monitored by Ben ZS5BN with race numbers being relayed to him from a rescue boat off-shore at a marker buoy.

Two single and two doubles started the short course (23Km) from Amanzimtoti at 08H00. “Windy Corner” in Athlone Park was covered by Wayne ZS5WAY. “Dakota Beach” Isipingo saw Shaun ZS5SM and Kathy ZS5OL keeping a good look-out.

It is safe to say that the busiest position was that of Rob ZS5ROB at the Bluff “V Cutting” who had his hands full reporting descriptions of ski’s passing his position to the Finish at “Brighton Beach” which was under the control of Provincial Director Keith ZS5WFD and Deon ZS5DD.

All communications were on 2 metres, using 145.550 Simplex with operators making use of portable masts with either directional or vertical antennas.

The winner of the Long Race – Double Ski – finished in 3 Hr 38 minutes whilst the first Single Ski finished in 4 Hr 09 minutes.

The race officials extended a sincere vote of thanks to HAMNET KZN for our valuable assistance in once again ensuring the successful running of the event.

Thank you Keith for ensuring that HAMNET KZN’s flag continues to fly high!

Indy100.com reports this week that scientists have just identified mysterious shapes flying above the Earth but, they say, don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that aliens are about to strike.

Using an imaging instrument called the Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD), the experts uncovered strange X and C shapes, which have been cropping up in surprising places at surprising times.

The researchers found the structures dancing around the ionosphere – the area where Earth’s atmosphere meets space – and say that the discovery could help improve radio communications and space weather forecasts.

The ionosphere – which sits roughly 80 to 644 kilometres above the planet’s surface – becomes electrically charged as sunlight strikes it over the course of the day. This creates plasma bands of charged particles that are further influenced by Earth’s magnetic field, as Science Alert notes. And it is these bubbles of plasma that form the X and C shapes that have been observed.

This study and the GOLD data serve as further proof of how innovations in scientific research and technology are helping us to discover more about Earth and the Universe as a whole.

Astrophysicist Jeffrey Klenzing from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre, who wasn’t directly involved in the study, pointed out: “The fact that we have very different shapes of bubbles this close together tells us that the dynamics of the atmosphere are more complex than we expected.”

With apologies for my gravelly voice, this is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.