Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has sent me a nice report of last Sunday’s Cycle Race in Division 6. He says:

“HAMNET Gauteng completed a very successful Ride for Sight Cycle event over the weekend of 15 and 16 February. Some of the team gathered at the stadium at 09:00 on Saturday morning to visit the infamous S-bends with the event Safety Officer. The S-Bends are intersections of the course where the cyclists change direction through a S-Bend between two roads.

“This same route is used for cyclists going out and returning to the Finish at the Boksburg Stadium. This section of the route uses the most road marshals, radio marshals and traffic officers to control the traffic.

“Later on Saturday morning, trailers needed to be collected from the hiring company that are towed behind buses and sweep vehicles to deliver and collect toilets around the route, and also to transport the bikes of cyclists who withdraw from the route either because of equipment failure, injury or exhaustion. This is all done by HAMNET members, most of whom do not use their own vehicles, but use one of the 10 sponsored bakkies. The two buses used to collect cyclists are also driven by HAMNET operators who have PDP licenses. HAMNET vehicles are used by the Water Point Managers, the lead vehicles and the Tail-end Charlies who also have a sweep vehicle accompanying them to collect all signs that have been put up for the event.

“The VOC was set up with antennas being erected and all the vehicles used for the event that did not already have radio equipment installed being given a radio and a tracker. At around 20:00 the members who had travelled from far and who slept over at the venue had a braai and a relatively early night’s rest so as to be up at 03:00 to get ready for race day. Other members who had not slept over had to be up by at least 02:00 in order to be at the venue by 04:00

“Race day arrived with rain showers. First order of the day was to install equipment into the five ambulances and two medical response vehicles, before the Water Point Managers escorted their cold storage trucks to their respective water points around the route. The morning did not go without a hitch and crisis management was the order of the morning, but by the time the first cyclists left the starting pens everything settled down and the event ran like clockwork as expected.  As the race progressed water points and their sweeps that were stood down by the back marker moved their water trucks to other water points and the sweeps were reassigned to other sections.

“There were far less cyclists on the road due to the weather which was probably a blessing in disguise. No major incidents were dealt with and by 14:00 most of the team were back at the stadium to assist with the de-installation of all the vehicles and taking down of all the antennas and equipment in the VOC.”

Brian thanks the 27 operators by call-sign, which I am not going to list here to reduce verbiage, and I thank Brian for the comprehensive report.

Well if you ever wanted a sign that doom is nigh, read on. Nypost.com reported on Tuesday that a rare “doomsday” creature known as an Oarfish has washed ashore in the Canary Islands, sparking fear that a disaster is on our doorstep.

Generally residing at depths of up to 3,200 feet, this elusive fish was found by bathers on the coast of Playa Quemada, as seen in a video with over 9 million views on Instagram, Jam Press reported.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one viewer on seeing the “doomsday” creature.

In the clip, a bather can be seen approaching the shimmery, orange-fringed fish in a bid to save it. The particular specimen appeared to be several feet in length, much smaller than their max size of 56 feet, which makes them the longest of any bony fish.

Unfortunately, the resplendent critter’s journey to the surface likely didn’t bode well for the beast — shallow-swimming oarfish are typically sick or even dying, scientists claim.

The creature’s presence is believed to be unlucky for humans as well. According to Japanese mythology, the serpentine plankton-eaters will purposely rise to the surface and beach themselves whenever they sense that trouble’s on the horizon.

In fact, doomsday fears ramped up during the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami when dozens of these pelagic beasts washed ashore in the two years preceding the catastrophe.

Instagram commenters seemed to believe the latest emergence was a scaly sign of the apocalypse.

“Something bad is going to happen,” fretted one, while another wrote, “They show up before natural disasters.”

“Usually, it means that an earthquake is coming when it appears on the surface of the water,” said a third. In August, an oarfish was found in La Jolla Cove just two days before a 4.6 earthquake shook Los Angeles.

However, experts were quick to dismiss this as a giant fishy story.

“The link to reports of seismic activity goes back many, many years, but there is no scientific evidence of a connection, so I don’t think people need to worry,” said Hiroyuki Motomura, a professor of ichthyology at Kagoshima University. “I believe these fish tend to rise to the surface when their physical condition is poor, rising on water currents, which is why they are so often dead when they are found.”

Medicalxpress.com is reporting an interesting case this week from Italy of an overweight person who tried cocaine in an attempt to lose weight, and became addicted to it, not surprisingly.

When he reported to the doctors in Italy, his medical condition made him an ideal candidate to receive Semaglutide, one of the members of the Ozempic family. He was followed up at 12 weeks, when the team found that the patient had lost approximately 12% of his body weight, as was expected. Then, because the patient reported a drastic reduction in cravings for cocaine, the team asked him to take a standard psychology survey assessment designed to quantify addiction cravings. It showed the patient experienced a 59% reduction in cravings.

The patient also reported feeling healthier overall, with more energy, less joint pain and a brighter outlook. The only downside was gastrointestinal distress, which the team readily treated. They suggest future research could determine whether GLP-1 therapies like Semaglutide might be used for the treatment of a wide variety of drug addictions.

The only snag here is the almost total unavailability of these medicines in clinical practice, not even for the diabetics, for whom they are intended, because all supplies are gobbled up by the rich and famous in first world countries to help them lose those centimetres which they think make them look ugly.

This is Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, unable to afford Semaglutide, happy to remain ugly, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

The Brakpan Herald is noting, in citizen.co.za, that the emergency communications division of the South Africa Radio League (SARL), HAMNET, is setting up a massive communications network to provide critical radio communications at the Ride for Sight cycle race on February 16, that’s today, to ensure the safe and efficient running of the event.

SARL HAMNET is part of the organizing committee of the Retina South Africa Dis-Chem Ride for Sight event to be held at Boksburg Stadium. HAMNET’s dedicated team of communications specialists will be responsible for establishing a venue operations centre (VOC) with three radio networks to manage communications for the event.

All resources on the road assisting the cyclists are tracked with a tracking system so that at all times the VOC personnel comprising of fire, medical, traffic, Road Angels and other organizations know exactly where everyone is and which resources are the closest to where an incident has taken place and where help is needed.

HAMNET also has their members monitoring the five water points along the route, ready to assist if supplies are getting low and are also supporting ten sweep vehicles which are manned by qualified and licensed radio amateurs and basic life support (BLS) first aiders who patrol the route, ready to assist any cyclist in need. All are tracked and in radio contact with the VOC.

It will also provide an emergency phone system making MySoS available to cyclists to call for assistance. When a cyclist pushes the help button on the MySoS app on his smartphone, a marker immediately appears on a large map at the VOC showing where the cyclist is and all the resources available closest to the cyclist.

I look forward to having a report perhaps, straight from the horses’ mouths, so to speak, in next week’s bulletin.

The science world is abuzz with a triple whammy observation from outer space picked up on Thursday the 6^th February. It very seldom happens that any astronomical or cosmological event is noticed using more than one type of electromagnetic, gravitational, or quantum technique at the same time.

I have written previously about observatories developed to watch for gravitational waves, which would distort space-time, and predicted by Albert Einstein at least 100 years ago. There are currently two Light Interferometry Gravitational Observatories, abbreviated to LIGO, one in America, and the other in Italy, and more on the way. If a cosmic event is big enough it will disturb the gravitational field of the universe, causing ripples like seen in a pond after you drop a stone in the water, but disturbing gravity, and able to be detected everywhere simultaneously.

Well, there was a major Gravitational Wave disturbance last Tuesday, measured in the LIGO experiments, and deemed to be coming from a specific spot about a billion light years away in the Universe.

Very shortly thereafter, a Neutrino detector buried deep under the ice in Antarctica detected a burst of Neutrinos coming from the same direction, but taking a minute or so longer to get here, and also measured to have come from the direction of the gravitational disturbance just felt.

This got scientists curious, and so they canvassed all observatories for anything unusual, and a radio observatory in Canada, dedicated to detecting Fast Radio Bursts (FRB’s) reported a similar observation, but about a day later, and also coming from the exact spot where the Gravity waves and the Neutrinos had come from.

Interesting that the gravitational disturbance was detected before the neutrinos arrived and also before the radio waves did. I thought radio waves travelled at the speed of light, and nothing travelled faster than that!

The source of Fast Radio Bursts is still not understood. Extremely massive magnetic sources, called Magnetars, are currently the chief suspects, but with gravity waves and extra unexpected Neutrinos to think about, all three types of astronomical observations may allow scientists to develop better explanations for their own phenomena. So watch this space – knowledge can only grow with these types of events.

Techxplore.com reports this week that engineers have enabled a drone to determine its position in the dark, and indoors. In the future, autonomous drones could be used to shuttle inventory between large warehouses. A drone might fly into a semi-dark structure the size of several football fields, zipping along hundreds of identical aisles before docking at the precise spot where its shipment is needed.

Most of today’s drones would likely struggle to complete this task, since drones typically navigate outdoors using GPS, which doesn’t work in indoor environments. For indoor navigation, some drones employ computer vision or LIDAR, but both techniques are unreliable in dark environments or rooms with plain walls or repetitive features.

MIT researchers have introduced a new approach that enables a drone to self-localize, or determine its position, in indoor, dark, and low-visibility environments. Self-localization is a key step in autonomous navigation. The researchers developed a system called MiFly, in which a drone uses radio frequency (RF) waves, reflected by a single (RF) tag placed in its environment, to autonomously self-localize.

Because MiFly enables self-localization with only one small tag, which could be affixed to a wall like a sticker, it would be cheaper and easier to implement than systems that require multiple tags. In addition, since the MiFly tag reflects signals sent by the drone, rather than generating its own signal, it can be operated with very low power.

Two off-the-shelf radars mounted on the drone enable it to localize in relation to the tag. Those measurements are fused with data from the drone’s onboard computer, which enables it to estimate its trajectory. The researchers conducted hundreds of flight experiments with real drones in indoor environments, and found that MiFly consistently localized the drone to within fewer than 7 centimetres.

“As our understanding of perception and computing improves, we often forget about signals that are beyond the visible spectrum. Here, we’ve looked beyond GPS and computer vision to millimeter waves, and by doing so, we’ve opened up new capabilities for drones in indoor environments that were not possible before,” says Fadel Adib, associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, director of the Signal Kinetics group in the MIT Media Lab, and senior author of a paper on MiFly.

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

HAMNET, in the Western Cape was kept very busy all morning yesterday (8^th Feb), assisting and shepherding cyclists around 4 different cycle races out of Durbanville, on the occasion of this year’s 99er Cycle Tour.

Some 4300 participants took part, riding either a 95Km race to Malmesbury and back, this being a seeding race for the Cape Town Cycle Tour later in the year, or a 76km shorter race in the direction of Wellington and back, or a 45km short race round the outskirts of Durbanville, or finally an 80km off-road race, called the Trilogy, because most of it was on farm cycle tracks, some was on gravel road, and bit of it on tar.

The weather started off cool and cloudy, but rapidly cleared up, developing into a beautiful mild warm day with a bit of a cool breeze.

Thirteen separate stations were activated, 9 of them being mobile roving operators, all equipped with APRS  tracking, and 2 pairs of stationary mobiles supervising bikes going through narrow bridge constructions, and stopping oncoming traffic from the far side, while groups were crossing the bridges.

A good deal of experimentation with smart beaconing by the trackers to get an adequate number of position reports through to the JOC, was undertaken, as well as the successful addition of a second temporary digipeater beyond Malmesbury, where the Cape Town digipeaters do not receive tracking reports well, and the tracking went superlatively. We usually install a primary temporary digipeater on top of the Meerendal koppie which we hiked up on Friday afternoon to install, and had line-of-sight comms with the second digipeater outside Malmesbury. It is to be fetched again today, during a second hike up 440 metres of altitude.

The JOC was manned by our two directors, Michael ZS1MJT, and his deputy Sybrand ZS1L, with help from Sharon who very kindly kept the written log of all the comms on a spreadsheet. We now have this very swanky horse-box type HAMNET Comms Trailer with a side that can be lifted up to create an awning, and equipped with everything that opens and shuts, and batteries and solar power to run the whole event without being connected to anything.

Our JOC was positioned next to the METRO Disaster Bus, which is always used as a medical JOC, where a doctor fields calls, and dispatches medics or ambulances, an ambulance dispatch officer, a road traffic official, as well as the dispatch manager for the sweep vehicles with trailers to pick up drop out cyclists.

There was one pile up, of a large group on the medium race to the R44 to Wellington, where a lot of bicycles went down, and there were quite a lot of minor injuries, and then one other unfortunate cyclist who hit a cat’s eye in the road and overturned, breaking his collarbone and wrist of the same arm, as well as sustaining a huge gash on the forearm, that required hospitalization to be cleaned up and stitched closed. Otherwise, no serious trauma was reported, and most riders made it home by the cut-off time of 12h30 CAT.

Our thanks go to ZR1JL, and ZS1’s MJT, L, ATX, LED, JFK, YT, JM, TAF, REY, CO, S, OSK, NOS, EZ, UP, OSS, BR, and DFR, the latter supervising the additional digipeater just off the N7 beyond Malmesbury.

I think we all slept very well last night after an early start to the day!

Countryandpolitics.in reports from India that The Bharat Scouts and Guides (BSG) Diamond Jubilee Jamboree, held in Manapparai, Tamilnadu, from January 28th to February 3rd, 2025, witnessed a surge of interest in amateur radio.

The event, which brought together approximately 20,000 Scouts and Guides from across India and beyond, featured a Ham Radio Pavilion that proved a major attraction, particularly among students. The Rajapalayam International Radio Communicators Club (RIRCOM), VU2IRD, was invited by the BSG National Headquarters to set up and operate the Ham Radio stations.

RIRCOM provided HF, VHF, and even LEO Satellite Communication demonstrations, showcasing the diverse capabilities of this fascinating hobby and service. A special call sign, “AU75BSG,” was issued by the Ministry of Telecommunications, WPC Wing, New Delhi, to Mr. Ramesh Kumar, VU2JFF, Trustee of RIRCOM, for the event.

The Ham Radio Pavilion became a hub of activity as Scouts and Guides engaged with the demonstrations. Many students were captivated by the operations, learning about radio technology, communication protocols, and the potential of ham radio for both recreation and emergency communication.

Participating in the ham radio activities allowed Scouts to earn an intellectual-based activity award, further incentivizing their involvement.

The scout movement in India recognizes the value of ham radio and encourages scouts to explore it. Ham radio offers scouts opportunities to:

Develop communication skills;

Learn about radio technology, protocols, and morse code;

Enhance problem-solving abilities: set up and operate a station requiring technical skills and troubleshooting;

Serve the community, as ham radio skills can be invaluable during emergencies and community projects; and

Promote global citizenship, connecting with scouts and hams worldwide, which in turn fosters understanding.

Bharat Scouts and Guides organize training courses and events, including basic courses, practical training, jamboree on the air (jota), and disaster preparedness training.

These activities offer scouts numerous benefits, including skills development, personal growth, community engagement, and global awareness.

RIRCOM has been providing voluntary service activities since 1993, including disaster communication, crowd management, ham radio training and awareness, and technical workshops in schools and colleges.

Their presence at the BSG diamond jubilee jamboree highlighted the importance of amateur radio within the scout movement and its potential to inspire the next generation of communicators and community leaders.

Finally spaceweather.com notes that what goes up, must come down – which could be a problem when you’re launching thousands of satellites. Since 2018, SpaceX has placed more than 7,000 Starlink satellites into Earth orbit, and now they are starting to come down. In January alone, more than 120 Starlinks deorbited, creating a shower of fireballs.

“The sustained rate of daily reentries is unprecedented,” says Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard Center for Astrophysics who tracks satellites. “They are retiring and incinerating about 4 or 5 Starlinks every day.”

Planners have long known this would happen. First generation (gen1) Starlink satellites are being retired to make way for newer models. “More than 500 of the 4700 gen1 Starlinks have now reentered,” says McDowell.

When Starlinks reenter, they disintegrate before hitting the ground, adding metallic vapours to the atmosphere. A study published in 2023 found evidence of the lingering debris. In February 2023, NASA flew a wb-57 aircraft 60,000 feet over Alaska to collect aerosols. 10% of the particles contained aluminum and other metals from the “burn-up” of satellites.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, probably more concerned about the pollution of our atmosphere than are the satellite builders, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has sent me news of the Fast One cycle race held in Midvaal over the weekend of the 25^th and 26^th January. He says:

”It was a late night and early morning for the members of the Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club and HAMNET, but their hard work at the 2025 Midvaal Fast One is appreciated.

“Think of the Midvaal Fast One and you immediately think of hundreds of cyclists taking the long route. However, there are also the organizers, the volunteers and the emergency services who all have a task or six for the day.

“Who keeps all the people in touch with each other? On Sunday, it was once again the men and women of Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club and HAMNET who ensured that all racing vehicles could be followed on the computer. They also had volunteers at the water points who were in radio contact with the radio club’s temporary operations centre.

“We know where everyone is on the road at all times and can provide assistance immediately. This gives peace of mind for the cyclists and the organizers.

“This year we also provided the front vehicle, you know the one that rode out before the first riders in the 100km. We view cycle races and marathons as training sessions should a disaster occur somewhere,” said Gideon Jannasch.

“On Sunday, we again ensured that the nearest ambulance and emergency vehicle were informed of the exact location of a cyclist in need. On a previous occasion, we even had to get the helicopter out for a cyclist who had suffered a skull fracture.”

“Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club celebrates their 60th anniversary this year and is part of the SA Radio League, which is celebrating its centenary this year.

The team offers their services free of charge and most of the time uses their own equipment. A big day like the Midvaal Fast One keeps them busy for at least two full days: the first to equip all the emergency vehicles and then the full-time service during the race.

“Yet the men and women enjoy their unique, diverse hobby and are always ready to provide the necessary support through radio communication in any emergency operation.”

Thank you to Brian for sending me the report and the team of 15 volunteers who took part! And Happy Birthday to you Brian for yesterday!

Here’s some intriguing technology for you.

When astronomers detected the first long-predicted gravitational waves in 2015, it opened a whole new window into the Universe. Before that, astronomy depended on observations of light in all its wavelengths. We also use light to communicate, but mostly radio waves. Could we use gravitational waves to communicate?

The idea is intriguing, though beyond our capabilities right now. Still, there’s value in exploring the hypothetical, as the future has a way of arriving sooner than we sometimes think.

New research examines the idea and how it could be applied in the future. It’s titled “Gravitational Communication: Fundamentals, State-of-the-Art and Future Vision,” and it’s available on the pre-press site arxiv.org. The authors are Houtianfu Wang and Ozgur B. Akan. Wang and Akan are both with the Internet of Everything Group, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK.

“The discovery of gravitational waves has opened a new observational window for astronomy and physics, offering a unique approach to exploring the depths of the universe and extreme astrophysical phenomena. Beyond its impact on astronomical research, gravitational waves have also garnered widespread attention as a new communication paradigm,” the authors explain.

Traditional electromagnetic communications have definite drawbacks and limitations. Signals get weaker with distance, which restricts range. Atmospheric effects can interfere with radio communications and diffuse and distort them. There are also line-of-sight restrictions, and solar weather and space activity can also interfere.

What’s promising about gravitational wave communication (GWC) is that it could overcome these challenges. GWC is robust in extreme environments and loses minimal energy over extremely long distances. It also overcomes problems that plague electromagnetic communication (EMC), like diffusion, distortion, and reflection. There’s also the intriguing possibility of harnessing naturally created GWs, which means reducing the energy needed to create them.

“Gravitational communication, also known as gravitational wave communication, holds the promise of overcoming the limitations of traditional electromagnetic communication, enabling robust transmission across extreme environments and vast distances,” the authors point out.

Definitely food for thought! Now, how to get a gravitational wave generator to fit in the handheld I’m currently carrying?

Thank you to Evan Gough, reporting in universetoday.com.

Thejournal.ie reports that the secure communications network used by Ireland’s Emergency Services “went down for a period” during Storm Éowyn, according to the HSE’s CEO.

TETRA, which stands for “Terrestrial Trunked Radio”, is the secure radio network used by the likes of Ambulance Services, gardaí, the Coast Guard, and the Civil Defence.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, HSE CEO Bernard Gloster said that the TETRA radio communications system used by the Ambulance Service “went down for a period” during Storm Éowyn.

“That’s now, in the majority, restored and the service is functioning well,” added Gloster.

The Journal has obtained radio traffic from a Coast Guard station struggling to reach islanders off the West Coast during the storm via Tetra.

Gloster also said all of the HSE’s services have been restored following significant disruptions due to Storm Éowyn.

“There was a lot of concern last weekend,” said Gloster.

“And I know there have been anecdotal stories of concern about people who have experienced loss of power and water and heat, and of their dependency on electric items for things like home dialysis, for pressure relief in mattresses and so on.

“All of our high dependency patients were contacted pre and post the storm and no adverse events have been reported.

“That’s not to underestimate the difficulty and challenge people are experiencing now where they’re without heat, power, water, and the communications network has affected us all.”

The usual fix for an outage would be personal mobile phones but these were unavailable because of power outages. The other issue is that they no longer have analogue services available except in marine units. 

It is understood that more than 180 base locations which broadcast the system were hit.

It seems that this was one wild storm..

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