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.