RED alerts for two earthquakes in quick succession in Myanmar were issued by GDACS on Friday morning. The first, a magnitude 7.7, struck at 06h21 UTC at a depth of 10km, and exposed a population of over 6 million to severe shaking. The second, a 6.4 magnitude quake, struck in a nearby area at 06h32 UTC, and endangered the lives of 1.85 million people. At the time of recording this bulletin, casualty numbers have exceeded 1000, with over 2000 people injured, and there is a ghastly YouTube video going round of an incomplete 30-storey building collapsing completely, with workers trapped within. Naturally, transport and communications are severely affected.

Mybroadband.co.za says that insurers have recently warned that extreme weather occurrences, including freakishly strong winds and wind funnels such as tornadoes, are becoming more common in South Africa due to climate change. Local tornado occurrences are not completely unprecedented, with recorded sightings dating back as far as 1905 and multiple formations detected annually.

Meteorologists have generally not focused on these dangerous wind funnels due to their rarity and relatively limited impact compared to other storms.

However, it may surprise some that tornadoes have been responsible for dozens of deaths and injuries in South Africa over the past few decades, and substantial damage to thousands of homes and other buildings.

An article in Wikipedia lists at least 31 significant tornadoes between 1948 and 2025, 18 of which resulted in fatalities.

The most devastating in terms of loss of life occurred in the small Eastern Cape town of Mount Ayliff, on 19 January 1999.

That tornado was classified as F4 on the Fujita scale, with wind speeds between 333km/h and 420km/h, sufficient to throw cars and large objects a considerable distance.

An unclassified category tornado that caused 18 fatalities and 150 injuries in Mthatha just over a month earlier likely made more headlines as former President Nelson Mandela was nearly one of its victims. He was at a pharmacy when the tornado hit but was shielded by his bodyguards while lying on the floor.

Over the past year, there have been at least two confirmed tornadoes, both of which occurred in mid-2024. The stronger of these ripped through parts of Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, on 3 June 2024, with wind speeds in the range of 218km/h to 266km/h. It claimed the lives of 12 people while causing R1.3 billion in infrastructure damage.

Just a day after that, another tornado was spotted moving between Newcastle and Utrecht, although its path resulted in minimal damage.

On Friday, the British ham radio channel TX Factor released its latest video, an in-depth description of the use of the QO-100 satellite repeater station, and using a very smart up- and down-transverter made by DX Patrol.

The Portuguese company has released a second version of this transverter now, making it possible to convert any uplink radio to transmit on the 2.4 GHz band up to the satellite parked in geostationary orbit on 0 degrees latitude and longitude, and to convert the 10.5 GHz downlink frequency to a receive frequency of your choice as well.

So this is basically a one-box-does-most–of-the-heavy-lifting station accessory. To operate on QO-100, you need the DX Patrol, a transceiver to transmit, a separate receiver (preferably) to work full duplex and listen to yourself on the satellite, a GPS antenna to plug in to the DX Patrol unit, to position yourself correctly, and to generate a lock signal to keep the uplink stable, and then a satellite dish, as small as 40cm in diameter, with the necessary coax to send and receive signals.

Of course sophistication like this doesn’t come cheap, but, by the time you have assembled all the parts yourself, and patched them all together, you probably have invested as much in a homebrew station as in the DX Patrol version 2.

The video is available on YouTube, so look for the channel called TX Factor, and watch Bob McCreadie G0FGX set it all up and conduct an easy QSO.

A quick update of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications (DLARC) from Kay Savetz K6KJN reveals that, so far, 149,500 items have been digitized and added, and that’s 19.5 terabytes of information. 1.1 million Pages of data were scanned in 2024 alone, so everything you can possibly think you might ever need is probably already there. Just google Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications and you will be astounded at what has been compiled so far.

In another article, mybroadband.co.za announced on Thursday that MTN South Africa and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite service company Lynk Global carried out a successful technical trial of one of the first satellite-to-mobile device phone calls in South Africa. The phone call, made in Vryburg, North West, allowed the companies to test voice call quality and SMS capabilities over an LEO satellite connection. It was conducted following ICASA’s approval of the use of radio frequencies on MTN-licensed IMT spectrum for the duration of the trial.

“The technical trial was part of our work to find potential solutions to the challenges of providing coverage in underserviced, rural and remote areas,” said MTN South Africa CEO Charles Molapisi. He said that the call was a proof-of-concept of MTN’s ability to complement its ground-based cell towers and other infrastructure with LEOs.

“The implications of potentially leveraging satellite partnerships will not only help MTN achieve its goal of 99% broadband population coverage but most importantly, benefit all South Africans,” Molapisi said.

Lynk Global chief commercial officer Dan Dooley said the successful trial was the first time that a satellite phone call was made in Africa using an unmodified phone.

“Importantly, this technology is device-agnostic, ensuring compatibility with existing mobile units and requiring no special modifications,” the companies said.

Satellite calls via older geosynchronous (GEO) satellites require expensive devices with specialised antennas and modems to enable transmission of data between Earth and GEO satellites orbiting at an altitude of 35,786km.

MTN said that LEO satellites typically orbit at altitudes between 160 km and 2,000 km, meaning that their orbital periods are between 90 minutes and a few hours.

“This is suitable for applications that need rapid data communication or frequent re-visits of specific areas,” the company said. “The lower altitude contributes to lower signal travel times, resulting in lower latency. This is crucial for real-time communication, video conferencing and online gaming.”

The mobile network added that direct satellite-to-phone contact offered several other potential benefits, including mass notification capabilities for critical alerts such as weather warnings, health advisories, and humanitarian updates in remote areas.

Thanks to mybroadband.co.za for both their contributions.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, uncertain as to whether he should be using QO-100 or his mobile phone for a satellite contact, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.