Tropical Cyclone REGASA in the South China Sea, has had a devastating effect on the northern islands of Philippines, and has moved on to pummel China.

GDACS writes that, in the Philippines, the passage of RAGASA and a smaller storm MITAG, behind it, combined with the Southwest monsoon, caused heavy rainfall, floods, and landslides, four fatalities, seven people missing, 11 injured, 46,628 displaced, and 692,707 affected by the flooding.

In Taiwan, RAGASA caused 14 fatalities and around 10,000 people to be evacuated. In China, its passage resulted in approximately 770,000 evacuated people in the Guangdong province and 60 injured and 727 evacuated people in Hong Kong.

And, on Friday, GDACS announced that a newly formed Tropical Cyclone BUALOI – named OPONG in the Philippines – was moving northwest toward central Philippines. On 25 September at 0.00 UTC, its centre was located 383 km east of Samar Island’s eastern coast, with maximum sustained winds of 102 km/h (and as a tropical storm).

BUALOI has a course almost exactly parallel to RAGASA, but slightly more southerly than RAGASA, so the Philippines has been struck by three tropical storms or cyclones in as many days.

BUALOI was expected to continue northwest and to make landfall over southern Luzon Island between 25 and 26 September. It will then cross central and northern Philippines – particularly southern Luzon and Mindoro – from 26 to 27 September, bringing heavy rain and strong winds. After that, it should continue north-west over the South China Sea and make landfall over north-eastern Viet Nam on 29-30 September.

Thank you to GDACS for all those reports.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Hurricane Gabrielle, which approached the Caribbean, and then veered up north east, along the coast of the US, before drifting off in an easterly direction, is now threatening Portugal. Carlos Nora CT1END, the emergency comms coordinator for Portugal, reports that their communications group will be on standby on 3.680MHz, 7.110MHz, 14.300MHz, and a variety of VHF simplex and repeater frequencies in the country from Saturday the 27^th, until the danger is passed. Please be mindful of the HF frequencies, and don’t call in, unless it is clear that you can help.

Danie ZS1OSS has sent me a report of an event in Cape Town this last Monday. He writes:

“Cape Town hosted a G20 outreach on climate resilience and coastal protection this last week. It was a pre-cursor to a main event expected later in October.

“The high-level gathering on 22 September 2025 was themed ‘Coastal Protection and Eco-Based Disaster Risk Reduction’. It was led by the National Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, and the Deputy Mayor of Cape Town was also in attendance.

“The outreach aimed to demonstrate the urgent need for stronger coastal defences as rising seas, storm surges and erosion threaten cities worldwide. The event also featured exhibitions of local disaster risk reduction projects, volunteer programmes, and community-based resilience efforts.

“Participants included the City of Cape Town Disaster Management, various NGOs, private sector partners, the National Sea Rescue Institute, the South African Weather Service, the Langa Community Advice Services, and other emergency and community organizations.

“HAMNET was also present and had our emergency communications trailer there. The Minister was briefed by our HAMNET WC Director, Michael ZS1MJT around what HAMNET is, and what it has been doing locally and nationally for various coastal and air related call-outs. The Minister was invited inside the trailer where Danie ZS1OSS showed him the APRS radio-based tracking we have on a screen, and the various other pieces of radio equipment. Whilst the Minister then made a statement to the media outside our trailer, we fielded a number of additional questions from ministerial advisors and delegates, and also had a member of the local Fire Rescue Service express interest in obtaining his amateur radio licence.

“The event was a success from HAMNET’s perspective, and also goes to show that our smart trailer does draw a lot of attention, and it was well worth having it present.”

Thank you, Danie, for that nice report.

Universe.com reports that the satellite Psyche launched in 2023, with the aim of studying the 220-kilometer metal asteroid also named Psyche that, according to one hypothesis, may be a fragment of the core of a dead protoplanet. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach Psyche in 2029.

In addition to studying the asteroid, Psyche also has the function of a “tester.” NASA specialists installed an experimental optical communication system on board. Its main advantage over traditional radio communication is its 10 to 100 times higher data transfer rate. Lasers can transmit complex scientific information, as well as high-definition images and videos. This is especially important for the next stage of space exploration, when humans will travel to the Moon and Mars and will need to send large amounts of data back to Earth quickly.

The first experiment took place on December 11, 2023, when Psyche was 31 million kilometers from Earth. The spacecraft sent a 15-second video of a cat to Earth (which was preloaded before launch). The data transfer rate was 267 Mbit/s. This is a couple of orders of magnitude faster than when using radio communication.

JPL specialists repeated the experiment several times thereafter. As Psyche moved away from Earth, the data transfer rate gradually decreased (for example, when the spacecraft was 226 million km away, it was 25 Mbit/s), but it was still much faster than traditional radio communications. In addition, engineers tested another innovation in the form of duplicate data. The spacecraft successfully demonstrated that it can simultaneously use both radio and laser communication systems to communicate with Earth. The radio data was transmitted to NASA’s Deep Space Network, and the laser data was received by the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. The photons captured by it were then directed to a highly efficient detector array, where the information encoded in them was processed.

Almost two years after the start, JPL specialists conducted the 65th and final experiment. During the mission, Psyche once again broke the distance record by successfully sending a signal from a distance of 350 million km. This corresponds to the radius of the inner boundary of the asteroid belt.

According to scientists, the experiments successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology. Data encoded by lasers can be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after passing hundreds of millions of kilometers. In total, Psyche transmitted 13.6 terabits of data to Earth over the entire period. At the same time, the data transfer rate turned out to be even higher than expected. All this means that the technology has great prospects, especially when space agencies face the challenge of transmitting large amounts of high-resolution images and data from the Moon and Mars.

All I can say is “Cor Blimey, ain’t science wunnerful?!”

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

The far eastern shores of Russia, in the Kamchatka region has suffered two earthquakes of about magnitude 7.6 this week, the first of 7.4 on Monday past, and the second of 7.8 on Thursday evening our time. There have been many aftershocks, but luckily the epicentres have been off-shore, and casualties not recorded. Tsunami warnings were originally issued, but subsequently withdrawn. A total of 44 aftershocks of 4.5 magnitude or greater, in exactly the same spot, were reported on in Friday’s GDACS bulletin alone.

Since the 18^th September, Philippines and China have been threatened by Tropical Cyclone RAGASA, with maximum wind speeds of 220km/h, which arose in the north western Pacific, and which has moved across the northern tip of Philippines, in the direction of the south eastern coast of China. Its passage over northern Luzon affected more than 63,000 people and displaced nearly 800 individuals across at least five regions, primarily in Luzon Island.

RAGASA is expected to strengthen as a tropical storm while continuing its north west trajectory and is forecast to make landfall along the southeastern coast of Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, on 19 September.

From 18–20 September, heavy to very heavy rainfall will occur in southeastern China, while moderate to locally heavy rainfall is expected across most of the Philippines.

And on 20^th September, the alert level for RAGASA was raised to RED, with maximum windspeeds of up to 220km/h expected, as it crossed the northern tip of Luzon Island on its way to China.

Additionally, a new tropical cyclone – named NANDO in the Philippines – formed over the central Philippine Sea, and is moving north-west, projected to cross the northern islands of the Philippines, Babuyan and Batanes on 23 September.

From Malaysia, we learn that Amateur radio operators in Sabah have activated the frequency of 7.110MHz as an emergency channel following widespread floods that cut off power and phone services.

Kelab Radio Amateur Utara Selatan Sabah (KRAUSS) President Janson Juwily said the move was to help channel critical information from affected areas where roads were blocked by landslides and communications disrupted.

“KRAUSS is coordinating information received from operators and passing on important or emergency updates to the relevant agencies,” he said.

He said 10 emergency stations manned by KRAUSS members are operating round the clock in Tuaran, Beaufort, Penampang and Kota Kinabalu, besides mobile stations.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Amateur Radio Emergency Committee confirmed 7.110 MHz has been designated as the official channel for flood-related communications in Beaufort, Papar and Penampang.

The committee urged amateur radio users to vacate the frequency for emergency use only, prioritizing urgent messages, relief coordination and vital updates.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) also issued a global notice, with Region 3 Secretary-General Ken Yamamoto calling for the frequency to be reserved strictly for emergency, rescue and relief communications.

Meanwhile, reports from Penampang said transmission towers had collapsed, causing major power disruptions, water supply cuts and loss of phone services.

Thank you to dailyexpress.com.my for these paragraphs.

The website gdc.govt.nz notes that a casual chat about how to connect communication blackspots around Tairāwhiti has led to an ingenious system that will work when all else fails.

It all started when Tairāwhiti went dark during Cyclone Gabrielle – all communications were cut off. Cell towers and data networks went offline and there was no Wi-Fi or phone coverage.

“There had to be a better way,” says Tairāwhiti Emergency Management (TEMO) Group Manager, Ben Green. It led him to a conversation with Liam Cottle, a local, self-taught software engineering and radio communications expert.

Before the cyclone, Tairāwhiti already had black spots, but the issue was magnified during an emergency.

“Communication infrastructure is prone to failing,” says Mr Green. “That’s a real-time, today issue. Liam and I had a discussion around how we could solve the problem of communities without communications.”

A proof of concept was produced using a mesh communication system, Meshtastic, as a test bed. After testing identified technical limitations a new system called MeshCore was developed. It is a network where each device connects directly with others without relying on a central hub or cell tower.

Mr Cottle also designed an app and web interface that enables the users to text others on the network which connects to the Emergency Coordination Centre. TEMO has also invested in building solar powered repeaters that will create a backbone of the regional network.

“We wanted to embed a low cost but resilient communication network across the region that was easily deployable,” says Mr Green.

“Liam has taken a problem statement to create a bespoke solution for which he has developed and built MeshCore. This system improves on existing open-sourced solutions and has been designed as a complete regionally connected system that can operate off-grid, to provide secure, text-based messaging.”

“The user interface turns it into a command-and-control network that is easy to use. It is a low bandwidth slow system that is ideal for emergency communications.” Ben says the potential for even more to come from the encrypted MeshCore system is exciting.

“StarLink was seen as the great hope, and it does well but recent events have shown that satellite systems can be affected and taken offline. For our regional emergency planning, we have at least six back up modes of communication and MeshCore is now one of those.”

There has been a revolving door of members of parliament visiting the TEMO Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Lytton West, and Mr Green says he loves to show them the initiatives being rolled out in one of the nation’s most disaster-hit areas.

“This is real bang for buck for the taxpayer dollar,” he says. “MeshCore provides a capability that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars.”

Mr Cottle works alongside other like-minded engineers in Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe.

“There are lots playing with this technology all over the world, but not the way we are doing it here,” he says.

Thanks to ngt.govt.nz for the article.

It appears we are doing the same sort of thing here in South Africa, with meshtastic nodes which connect directly to each other, without use of a central hub or cell tower, but our encoding is different from MeshCore. And meshtastic, being licenceless, is used and promoted by all, not only radio hams.

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

In a follow-up to the petition to the FCC to refuse the use of amateur frequencies between 430 and 440MHz by a space-based internet service called AST SpaceMobile, the FCC has granted the service limited use of the 430–440 MHz amateur radio band. The license grants use of amateur radio spectrum for emergency purposes only.

The IARU relays that the volume of comments filed by amateur radio organizations and operators contributed to the limited grant by the FCC Space Bureau. The IARU continues to maintain that AST SpaceMobile has failed to show a legitimate need to utilize amateur radio spectrum.

Hopefully, there will be recourse to appeal this allocation in the future, if interference to ham activity becomes more and more intrusive.

This is a quick warning of a moderate tropical storm BLOSSOM, which has arisen north east of the tip of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It is not threatening any landmass yet, and has wind speeds of about 75km/h, so is of no great concern at present. GDACS will continue to follow it, and report daily on its position.

The ARRL letter of 11^th September says that Amateur radio volunteers serving in the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the National Weather Service SKYWARN program were active over the weekend. They were serving their communities in New England as tornado-warned storms moved across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Five EF1 tornadoes struck the central Massachusetts communities of Paxton, Holden, Berlin and Stow.

A squall line of severe thunderstorms that would eventually have embedded tornadoes in central Massachusetts swept across the region. SKYWARN nets were activated on repeaters across the area. Reports came in rapidly of downed trees and wires, as well as hail up to 20mm in diameter in western Massachusetts, with radio amateurs sharing critical damage reports from this area. In addition, reports of damage were received in all of the tornado path areas in near real time and were shared with the National Weather Service, Boston / Norton Weather Forecast Office, WX1BOX, amateur radio team, directly via repeaters, using various applications, email, or social media that the amateur radio team utilizes.

“It had been a below normal 2025 severe weather season with only one large-scale severe weather event [in July] across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts,” said Rob Macedo, KD1CY, ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator and SKYWARN Coordinator. “That all changed on September 6th.”

Southern New England averages 2 tornadoes per year. The 6 states of New England average 8 tornadoes per year and there had been none in 2025 until Saturday the 6th, when 2/3 of the average yearly total occurred. This outbreak also put southern New England above average for tornadoes in the 2025 season.

All active SKYWARN nets were secured around 6:30 PM local time on Saturday.  Thanks to the ARRL for that news.

BBC.com/news reports that a mural is to be created to celebrate a radio communications station in Warwickshire dating back to the 1920s. The Rugby radio station was used for global communications in both peacetime and during the war.

It was used to broadcast time signals and linked the Royal Navy across the British Empire. The site is now being redeveloped and the developers have brought in an artist to create a mosaic made up of thousands of photos from the local community.

The radio station opened in 1926 and by the 1950s it was the biggest such station with nearly sixty masts, but it closed in the early 2000s and a school now stands on part of the site.

The artist, Allan Levy, said his mural would show “what Rugby radio was really about in its heyday when it was transmitting to the rest of the world and we were at the cutting edge of technology”. Mr Levy is still searching for more photos from the local community and aims to have the mural complete in time for the radio station’s 100th anniversary next year.

Thanks to the BBC for that report.

Reporting in theguardian.com/news, Kate Marvel says “Once upon a time, the world was powered by whale. Oil made from whale blubber burns cleanly and well, though it smells strongly of fish. It was, for a while, the perfect fuel. To meet the growing demand, whales were hunted almost to extinction.

“And then we discovered that oil could come from the ground. Lamps once lit by rendered blubber were swiftly changed over to run on what Americans call kerosene and the British call paraffin. Later, those lamps were changed to run on electricity, and instead of burning oil in the lamps themselves, we began to burn it in power plants miles away.

“This is where we find ourselves today. When a fossil fuel is combusted, it releases energy, which boils water, which turns to steam, which drives a turbine, which generates electricity. This is an almost comically inefficient process, requiring immense amounts of material: more than 8 billion tons of coal and 4 trillion cubic metres of fossil gas every year. And given the basic chemistry of combustion, it’s unavoidable that burning all this stuff leads to an immense buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Worse, fossil gas itself is made of methane – shorter lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but more than 80 times more potent while it lasts. Around a quarter of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

“To have a hope of limiting warming, this has to change. The transition to clean energy will be difficult, but not impossible. Some of it is already happening. Renewable energy technologies have become good, reliable and inexpensive. Solar and wind, as well as the batteries needed to compensate for their intermittency, are getting cheaper at an astonishing rate. The price of onshore wind power plummeted 70% in the last decade, while solar costs fell by almost 90%. As a result, renewables are already being deployed at rates forecasters never imagined. If you had told me, even five years ago, how quickly the energy transition would be proceeding, I would not have believed you. It’s more than I ever dared to hope for. Finally, things are beginning to move. But they need to move faster. We know they can. They have before.”

Thank you to the theguardian.com for these first paragraphs from their commentary.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR very grateful that I don’t have to boil up some whale blubber to extract oil to light a lamp to be able to see what I’m typing, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Afghanistan experienced a magnitude 6 earthquake in its eastern border area with Pakistan, on Sunday the 31^st August at 21h17 CAT. The epicentre of the quake was a mere 6km below the surface, in a seismically active area because of ongoing friction between the Eurasian and the Indian tectonic plates.

The earthquake struck just before midnight local time on Sunday in a mountainous region near the city of Jalalabad, along the eastern border with Pakistan. It was of a relatively low 6.0 magnitude. But its epicentre was shallow at 8km underground, resulting in strong shaking on the surface and a series of aftershocks.

By Friday, GDACS was reporting a death toll at 2205, with injuries to 3604 people and the destruction of 6782 houses. People in the surrounding areas affected by the earthquake number about 497000, of whom 263000 are children.

Most of the dead and injured were sleeping indoors at the time of the earthquake, and were crushed by collapsing buildings. Because of the remoteness of the affected areas, and also blockage of road networks from landslides caused by the earthquake, the exact death toll may take a long time to find out.

Rural communities in Afghanistan can’t afford sturdy and manufactured building materials. Because of this they build homes with locally available natural materials such as earth, stone and raw lumber.

Such buildings do not follow engineered designs, building codes or formal professional standards that prevent easy damage by earthquakes in wealthier countries.

A typical form of construction in Afghan rural areas is walls made of mud bricks or stone masonry. This is known as “monolithic” construction.

Such construction is unable to resist the strong side-to-side shaking caused by an earthquake. As a result, buildings easily tumble and crush people. Reports of collapsed rubble where there were once buildings are emerging widely from Afghanistan, as was also the case in previous earthquakes.

More than one aftershock has been recorded in the area, the last, of magnitude 5.6 being measured on 4^th September at 18h56 CAT.

Next door, Pakistan is experiencing the heaviest monsoon flooding in 40 years. GDACS says that the flooding is due to unprecedented water releases from the Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi rivers. This is affecting more than 2.4 million people and displacing more than 1 million people.

As of 6^th September, 884 fatalities and 1,182 injuries had been reported, while the UN reported 1.8 million evacuations and the creation of over 700 relief camps sheltering 12,500 people.

Meanwhile Portugal is mourning a devastating crash of a funicular train in Lisbon, called the Elevador da Gloria, which lost control as the carriage was coming down a steep hillside, derailed and crashed into a building.

Funiculars consist of two carriages on each end of a very strong cable. As one carriage comes down the hill on its end of the cable, the other carriage goes up the hill. In this way, a train coach can ascend or descend a steep slope in a controlled manner.

It seems, though not proven, that the cable snapped and the descending coach’s brakes were unable to slow the 20 ton carriage down or stop it. 16 people of many nationalities were killed and at least 20 injured

The company that operates the Elevador da Gloria has said regular inspections — including daily checks — had been carried out as required. It is therefore unlikely that negligence was at work. Portugal has declared 3 days of national mourning after the accident.

The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management held its annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station Exercise, in conjunction with ESKOM this last Thursday, the 4^th September. HAMNET has a MOU with DRM and was represented at the exercise by Danie ZS1OSS, who sent me this report. He says:

“The Annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station exercise was held by City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management on Thursday 4 September 2025 in conjunction with Eskom and many other national, provincial and local agencies. This is a mandatory exercise that the City Disaster Management and Eskom must conduct to test the readiness of the various departments and agencies that must respond if there were to be a real nuclear disaster. The exercise is also important to identify shortcomings that must be improved on, as well as for the various departments and agencies to practice their own skills and how to operate together with other agencies.

“HAMNET‘s role is one of emergency communications. HAMNET is present to monitor developments, as it is essential to have a situational awareness if deployment is required. If communication dead spots are encountered, or if communications completely fail at any location, a HAMNET member would be deployed to that location to ensure communications can be maintained with the decision makers in the Strategic Room. For this exercise, HAMNET deployed Danie ZS1OSS, assisted by Jannie ZS1JFK and Shawn ZS1LED.

“The exercise started off with a situation being simulated at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, which escalated to the point that an activation SMS was sent out at 09:30 for all agencies to deploy to their various posts. Such a deployment is all pre-planned and consists of some agencies deploying to one of the Mass Care Centre (MCC) locations, others to traffic road blocks, the mobilization of two passenger bus services for evacuation, and others to their pre-allocated seats in the Strat Room at Goodwood Disaster Risk Management Centre. HAMNET took the opportunity to test their simplex radio communications between the Strat Room and the Auditorium in the building, and the Meshtastic radios were also tested, with one being situated at the border of the Koeberg Nature Reserve. A quick debrief was done when things got quieter nearer the end of the exercise, and it was interesting to note that over repeated exercises there are newer faces asking new questions, as well as more experienced members identifying deeper issues that may arise. This is the whole point of holding exercises and drills, after all! The all clear was given at 13:40 and the exercise ended.”

Thank you, Danie. I believe there may be a follow up report in a future edition of RadioZS.

This is a very disappointed Dave Reece ZS1DFR, packing my green and gold jersey away until next week, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.