Adding to the list of tropical storms making their presence felt in the Caribbean, or the northwest Pacific, there is now a red alert out for Tropical Storm SHANSHAN, with maximum wind speeds of 213km/h. The storm is off to the east of Japan, but the estimated population affected by category 1 storm winds of at least 120km/h in Japan, is 22.4 million.

The storm is travelling due north-west at the moment, about 1000km off the southernmost tip of Japan, but is forecast to turn north-east on Monday and then strike the northern part of the southern island of Japan on Tuesday at about 8pm our time. It is expected then to travel up the length of the south island as a category 3 or 4 cyclone. I would expect lots of damage and some casualties.

In a report to me, Michael ZS1MJT says that HAMNET Western Cape was asked to provide a reliable communication network for the Wildrunner Trail Series run to be held at Kleinmond on Sunday 18 August 2024.

The race start was at the day camping facility, close to the beach. A beautiful sunrise welcomed the crew and weather conditions were perfect for such an event.

Two HAMNET operatives (Michael ZS1MJT and Sybrand ZS1L) met at 07h00 and set up a base at the start. Once the base was ready to operate, Sybrand drove to a designated position on the course to relay messages. As the race progressed, Sybrand moved to other positions to relay messages to and from other aid or marshal stations deeper in the mountains.

The Wildrunner frequencies were used for most communications and a simplex HAM frequency for communications between Sybrand and Michael was activated.

The first runners set off at 08h00. By 13h30, the final sweep returned to the arena and operators were allowed to stand down.

The event concluded without incident and the organizers were extremely grateful for our proficient service and message conveyance.

Thanks, Michael, for news of another successful operation.

Our next activation will be for the Helderberg Challenge Run, to be held on September the first.

In an interesting historic look at the opinion of Rajiv Gandhi, VU2RG, Prime Minister of India in the 1980’s, and the prime minister responsible for India’s liberalization and global “tech savvy” reputation, the nationalheraldindia.com notes that “Rajiv Gandhi realised the potential of radio hams. He himself cultivated the hobby, and his vision was to open up communications to the people through amateur wireless stations set up through a national network in 1.6 million villages.

“Even before he became prime minister, he organised an exhibition in 1981 at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi on ‘Communication: Past, Present, Future’. His mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the exhibition and was shown how to make contact over amateur radio with several ham stations set up in cyclone-prone areas of Andhra Pradesh.

“Amateur radio should be promoted as a hobby in national interest and to promote scientific temper among the youth. Communication and information technology would help in disaster mitigation, [Rajiv Gandhi] was convinced.

”Arya Ghosh, a life member of the National Institute of Amateur Radio, told the Hindu that on the last day of his life, Rajiv Gandhi made his last call on ham radio from the city of Visakhapatnam while on board an aircraft.”

He seems to have been a very enlightened technophile, bearing in mind that this was in the second half of the 1980’s.

From medicalxpress.com, I read that a team of neuroscientists, brain specialists and psychiatrists, led by a group at Cambridge University in the U.K, has found evidence suggesting that minor brain injuries that occur early in life may have health impacts later on.

In their paper published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the group describes how they analysed and compared MRI scans from hundreds of people participating in the U.K.’s Prevent Dementia study.

Prior research has suggested that some forms of dementia could be related to some types of brain injuries. In this new effort, the research team, hoping to learn more about the impact of concussions or other minor brain injuries on dementia, looked at MRI scans of 617 people between the ages of 40 to 59 who had volunteered to take part in the Prevent Dementia study and who had undergone at least three MRI scans. They also studied their medical histories, focusing most specifically on whether they had had brain injuries anytime during their life.

The research team noted that 36.1% of the volunteers reported having experienced at least one brain injury that was serious enough to have caused them to be unconscious for a short period of time—such injuries are classified as traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

Looking at the MRI scans, the researchers found higher than normal instances of cerebral microbleeds (1 in 6 of them) and other symptoms of what they describe as evidence of small vessel disease of the brain. They also found that those patients with at least one TBI were more likely to smoke cigarettes, had more sleep problems, and were more likely to have gait issues and to suffer from depression. They also noted that the more TBIs a person had, the more such problems became apparent.

Another thing that stood out, the team notes, was that those people who had experienced a TBI when younger had a higher risk of memory problems than did patients with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure or diabetes, a possible clue about their likelihood of developing dementia.

The researchers conclude by suggesting that more work needs to be done to learn about the long-term impacts of TBIs, particularly regarding memory retention problems and possible associations with the development of dementia. They further suggest that their work hints at the possibility of unknown health consequences years after people suffer head injuries.

Now this is serious stuff, because the brain injuries they are referring to are minor concussions experienced by young soccer players heading the ball, or young rugby players that go off the field for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) or young skateboard riders who fall and are dazed, none of whom is actually rendered fully unconscious.

One simply cannot underestimate a head injury or the long-term implications of one.

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

On Monday of this week, GDACS started carrying news of Tropical Cyclone AMPIL, active in the North West Pacific, and threatening the west coast of Japan, with wind speeds of up to 185km/h.

By Thursday, a RED alert had been issued for Japan, as AMPIL strengthened, developing winds of 210km/h. Five million people were faced with winds of at least 120km/h. Tokyo itself was the most at risk, with the eye of the storm passing just east of Tokyo on Friday at about 12h00 UTC.

And Tropical Cyclone ERNESTO announced itself in the Caribbean on Tuesday, threatening the Dominican Republic, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Dominica and Bermuda, and especially bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds to the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

It was forecast to generate heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surge over the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The ARRL, in its Thursday newsletter, reported that “Ernesto had moved out of Puerto Rico. The island suffered flash flooding, storm damage, and widespread power outages on Wednesday as Ernesto moved past. Half of all residents were without power, with flooding and damage especially pronounced in the eastern part of the island. Angel Luis Santana Díaz, WP3GW, Public Information Coordinator for the ARRL Puerto Rico Section, reports that amateur radio operators there are on the KP4FRA repeater system reporting situations in different municipalities.

“Fred Kleber, K9VV / NNA2FK, Section Manager of the ARRL Virgin Islands Section, reports Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VIETMA) activated its emergency operations centres on Tuesday night. Power is out to all customers on all islands with lines down and trees blocking some roads. Kleber estimated that full power restoration may take 1 – 2 days. All U.S. Virgin Island (USVI) repeaters are operating except for one, and the British Virgin Islands BVI.73 repeater is on the air as well.”

Techspot.com is reporting this week that major efforts to explore the Moon’s surface and build permanent human outposts will require precise timing technology. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is proposing a new “lunar time” system designed to make life much easier for astronauts – whether on the Moon or elsewhere in space.

While traditional atomic clocks are pushing the boundaries of time measurement precision with science fiction-like technological breakthroughs, those organizing the future of space exploration are focused on a more practical, yet otherworldly, issue. Atomic clocks on the Moon tick faster than those on Earth, gaining an additional 56 microseconds every 24 Earth hours.

This well-known discrepancy could jeopardize efforts to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon, as precise time measurement is essential for surface navigation, network communication, and more. On Earth, GPS satellites have atomic clocks synchronized to a common time reference, allowing receivers to determine position and time by measuring the delay in signals from multiple satellites.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now proposing a GPS-like system for the Moon, featuring a new master “Moon Time” that would serve as the timekeeping reference for the entire lunar surface. Instead of having clocks gradually fall out of sync with Earth’s time, the Moon would be synchronized to a single “time zone” adjusted for its reduced gravity, the agency explained.

As confirmed by Einstein’s theory of relativity, time is not a uniform phenomenon and is influenced by gravity. The Moon’s gravity is weaker than Earth’s, causing clocks to tick slightly faster. The plan conceived by NIST researchers includes a “highly precise” network of clocks placed at specific locations, both on the Moon’s surface and in orbit.

This lunar network would function as a GPS-like navigation system, providing precise measurements for landing attempts and vehicle-based surface exploration. Without this technology, astronauts working at a permanent lunar outpost could easily lose their way. According to NIST physicist Bijunath Patla, “the goal is to ensure that spacecraft can land within a few metres of their intended destination.”

The new navigation system is designed to support NASA’s efforts to return humans to the Moon. The Artemis program aims to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon while preparing for further exploration of Mars and beyond. According to Patla, the framework proposed by NIST could eventually enable exploration not just beyond the Moon, but even beyond the solar system.

I hope some or all of you are involved in the International Lightship and Lighthouse Weekend for the rest of today, either involved at a lighthouse with your club or favourite group, or trying to make contact with some of them. I think, though I am not sure, that more lighthouses are being activated in Division One than in any of our other coastal divisions, but there are usually about 500 lighthouses and lightships activated around the world, so hopefully, if propagation allows it, you will be able to make contact with some of them.

In the Western Cape, today also sees the running of the Kleinmond Trail Run, organized by Wildrunners, and part of their series of trail runs. HAMNET has been asked to assist, and we have two operators, one at base, and a 4×4 vehicle at a critical spot on the course, and using CalTopo mapping software to keep track of things. Michael, ZS1MJT will be at the base, and Sybrand, ZS1L will be up on the course. I hope to give you a report back next week.

Sciencenews.org reports that, for the second time, the World Health Organization has declared that Mpox, formerly called Monkeypox, is a global health emergency.

In 2022, global spread of the virus, which causes rashes, fevers, muscle aches and other symptoms, led to the first emergency declaration. That version of the virus, called Clade II, is still causing a small number of cases around the world, including in the United States.

Even as clade II cases decline globally, infections with Clade I Mpox have shot up in Congo. Nevertheless, the first Mpox emergency ended in 2023. The sometimes deadly Clade I virus has now spread to previously unaffected countries in Africa and reported cases have surged beyond levels seen in 2022 or 2023. Children have been particularly hard hit.

Following the committee’s advice, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on August 14 that the outbreak is now a public health emergency of international concern. “It’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” he said.

It will never be an epidemic or pandemic like Covid-19, but, in that it is a virus infection, treatment will be difficult, and spread will be easy.

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

In South Africa, we still have the disaster watch in progress over KwaZulu Natal, with extreme temperatures and very dry conditions. EWN news says that dangerous fires are expected across large parts of the province today (Sunday).

And the never-ending wet weather in the western parts continues. Three retention dams burst their banks in a chain-reaction type disaster, in the Swartland area of the Western Cape this week, and a fourth dam’s wall is looking vulnerable as I write this. The communities of Dassenberg, Chatsworth and Riverlands have been flooded, roads and other amenities washed away, and large numbers of animals washed away or drowned.

The dailymaverick.co.za reported yesterday that 14 people were hospitalized, 444 are receiving humanitarian support and 224 people are being housed at a local church and a community centre. The Riverlands town is without potable water, and the Swartland and Drakenstein Municipality will temporarily provide water to the community until water supply is restored. Electricity infrastructure to the area has also been destroyed.

And it goes without saying that the humanitarian relief organisation Gift of the Givers, which was called by the Swartland Municipality and local disaster management team in the early hours of Thursday morning to provide assistance in evacuating people and supplying aid, is still on the site and will remain there for the next week.

The SPCA from the Cape of Good Hope and the Swartland has been active in the area, desperately looking for missing farm and domestic animals. With all animal feed washed away, and grazing areas covered in sludge, there is an immediate need to supply food for the remaining animals once recovered. Donations are gratefully received by the SPCA in these areas.

Reporting on Tropical Cyclone DEBBY, a category one hurricane which swept across Florida before turning to cross the Carolinas, the ARRL newsletter of 8^th August says that the storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area just after 11pm local time on 4^th August.

The following day, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of about 120km/h. The national Hurricane Centre’s ham station WX4NHC was activated, as were the Hurricane Watch Net and the VoIP Hurricane Net, as Debby deprived 248000 homes and business customers of electricity.

GDACS says that, after DEBBY’s passage, media reported six fatalities, five across the Big Bend region (northern Florida) and one more in southern Georgia. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported 294 people evacuated to 36 shelters and evacuation orders for 12 counties throughout Florida.

DEBBY was forecast to make its second landfall over the central coast of South Carolina (near to the area of the Charleston city) on 8 August very early in the morning (UTC), with maximum sustained winds up to 83 km/h and as a tropical storm. Very heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges were forecast over South and North Carolina, and the tropical storm warning issued by NOAA is still in force over most of this area.

Grace Chen, reporting from Malaysia in thestar.com, says that members of a local amateur ham radio society took part in a mass disaster communication simulation exercise to transmit messages across 30 hills and mountain peaks nationwide.

The event was organised by the Malaysian Amateur Radio Transmitters Society (Marts) that was set up in 1952.

Its president Mohd Aris Bernawi said the exercise was to establish the locations where two-way radio communication can be carried out in the event landlines, Internet and mobile phone communication has to be shut down due to large-scale disasters.

“The floods in Pahang and Selangor in 2014 and 2021, respectively, rendered landlines and other digital networks unusable due to the need to shut off electricity.

“Radio communication can also be useful when there are large-scale forest fires where electricity and communication cable lines are located,” said Aris.

Among peaks chosen for the exercise was the National Planetarium in Kuala Lumpur, using the call sign 9M2RPN.

Marts member Hamdan Abu, who coordinated the locations, chose the planetarium because it was located more than 150m above sea level.

“Height is not the only criterion. No buildings should interfere with transmissions,” he said.

Hamdan, who took three months to look at locations, said members had also spent another three weeks training for the final day of the simulation exercise.

Six Marts members set up a tent beside the planetarium entrance during the day-long exercise, using different frequency bands to simulate road closures, weather conditions and rescue efforts, which their counterparts stationed on other peaks, would then transmit and relay.

Siti Nusilah Hassan said that the act of relaying a message during the simulation drill required a certain level of precision to preserve clarity.

“We will state the number of words, and during transmission, either by voice or Morse code, we will read out even the punctuation marks.”

To ensure accuracy, the receiver of the message must confirm receiving the same number of words as stated, she added.

Siti Nusilah, a sales and marketing executive with a textile company, said she became a ham radio enthusiast in 2017 after reading a news article on how knowledge in two-way radio communication could become an asset during emergencies.

She was joined at the planetarium by army sergeant Taufiq Sanapi, safety executive Ahmad Husaini Marzuki, 4 school lab assistant Ramlah Mamat, and Mohd Albar Mohd Noor, an executive director of an event management company. (Certainly a varied set of backgrounds those volunteers came from)

Thanks to The Star for these excerpts from their report.

I note with excitement again, the Sunspot Number registered on Saturday morning, of 382, which, together with a Solar Flux Index of 306, is the highest I’ve ever known about. Unfortunately the numbers are never constant, and so an average figure for the week, as quoted by Hannes Coetzee in the HQ bulletin, is far more accurate, and likely to predict the propagation possibilities.

By the way, if you don’t already know of the website, consider having a look at www.solarham.com run by a Canadian ham, VE3EN, who puts together all the possible indices of solar weather on one page, with daily and sometimes hourly updates, as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms change our communications patterns. There are also animations showing how CME’s affect the earth. Remember – a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s www.solarham.com.

Once again, from a very grey and drab and wet Western Cape, this is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Since the 30^th July, reports have been coming out of India regarding heavy monsoon rainfall which triggered a series of landslides in the Wayanad district of the Kerala state, in Southern India. According to SPHERE India, as of 30 July, 270 people had died, 378 were still missing, 214 had been injured and more than 8,500 people had been evacuated in 85 relief camps. The rainfall is ongoing, and so further infrastructure damage and loss of life can unfortunately be expected.

Interestingly, a variety of agencies in the media are claiming the landslides could have been avoided. The monsoon rains certainly couldn’t have been. Apparently 140mm of rain fell in a single day. According to a panel convened to study the disaster, a changing landscape, with the evolution of tourist resorts in the name of eco-tourism and [also] indiscriminate quarrying, has more than altered the topography and endangered safety. Such is the degradation that on the northern side of Wayanad, especially in Thirunelli and Mananthavady panchayats, the ground has cracked at many places and wide faults that trigger landslips have emerged. It is not surprising therefore that slices of hillside were easily shed to tumble into valley areas.

And the Global Disaster Alert Coordination System (or GDACS) noted a magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck the east coast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines just after midnight our time on Saturday morning early. The quake was situated at a depth of 26km, and exposed a population of 230000 people to possible injury. At the time of compiling this report, I was unable to find news of casualties.

Here’s a clever application of modern usage of those ubiquitous drones we read so much about. Techxplore.com reports that an international team of infectious disease researchers with the World Mosquito Program, working with colleagues from WeRobotics, has developed a way to release large numbers of mosquitoes infected with a mosquito-killing bacteria into the wild much more efficiently than current methods.

In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes the container that was designed to hold and carry the mosquitoes and then to release them slowly over a wide parcel of land.

Jacob Crawford, with Verily Life Sciences LLC, has published a Focus piece in the same journal issue outlining the requirements necessary for effective aerial release devices and pointing out the benefits that automation could provide.

Mosquitoes carry a variety of viruses such as those that cause dengue fever. Scientists and health officials have been working to find ways to reduce their population numbers in places that are vulnerable to such infections. One such approach has been finding bacteria that infect and disable or kill the types of mosquitoes that cause disease and then finding ways to infect the mosquitoes with the bacteria.

The most common approach is to breed large numbers of the mosquitoes, infect them and then manually release them into the wild. But such an approach, it has been found, is inefficient, difficult, and oftentimes dangerous. In this new effort, the research team has found a way to use drones to get the job done.

The work by the team involved designing a container that could hold multiple small loads of infected mosquitoes and then release them at desired intervals. It also had to be small and lightweight enough to be carried by a drone.

The result was a small white box capable of holding 160,000 mosquitoes, divided into multiple compartments with a release mechanism that could be used to release the mosquitoes held in a given compartment on-demand.

The drone can fly to a given spot, release approximately 150 infected mosquitoes and then move to another spot—over and over until all the mosquitoes have been released. The box also has a climate control feature and a means for sedating the mosquitoes until it is time for their release.

In field trials conducted in Fiji, the team found that the system worked well in uniform distribution compared to manual release. In a second field test, they found that use of the drone to distribute infected mosquitoes effectively spread the disease and greatly reduced mosquito numbers in the given area.

Personally Ithink this is fiendishly cunning of the researchers! Thanks to techxplore.com for that piece of news.

Members of the Rally support group in the Western Cape, which includes HAMNET members volunteered to assist with the All Tar Motor Rally held yesterday the 3^rd at Killarney Racetrack.

In beautiful blue-sky weather, 41 cars started the 7 stage rally, with at least 6 radio operators managing the JOC or the starts and finishes of the various stages. Johann Marais ZS1JM acted as Chief Radio Marshal for the race. I am reliably informed that several cars came off the racetrack in more pieces that they started in, but a good time seems to have been had by all the radio operators, and the comms for the race proceeded efficiently. Well done to you fellows!

Finally a report from spaceweather.com says that the monthly average sunspot number for July 2024 was 196.5, according to the Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Solar Influences Data Analysis Centre. Solar Cycle 25 wasn’t expected to be this strong. When it began in Dec. 2019, experts predicted it would be a weak cycle like its immediate predecessor Solar Cycle 24. If that forecast had panned out, Solar Cycle 25 would be one of the weakest solar cycles in a century.

Instead, Solar Cycle 25 has shot past Cycle 24 and may be on pace to rival some of the stronger cycles of the 20th century. Already in May 2024 we experienced a century-class geomagnetic storm with auroras sighted in the South Pacific, central America and southern Africa.

Is this Solar Max? The jury is still out. Sunspot numbers may continue to rise in the months ahead and, based on the behaviour of previous cycles, we can confidently expect high solar activity for at least 2 to 3 more years.

Here’s hoping!

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