The Christmas week has not given the people in the Margate area of the South Coast much joy. centralnews.co.za reports that heavy rains have caused major flooding in Margate on KwaZulu-Natal’s south coast, leaving roads blocked, properties damaged, and communities picking up the pieces during what should be a joyful holiday time. The downpours, which started around 16:30 on Sunday, 21 December 2025, brought intense rainfall that triggered widespread havoc, with water rushing through streets and into homes and businesses.

For families like those in the coastal belt from Margate through Oslo Beach to Port Shepstone, it meant a night of worry as they watched their belongings get soaked and cars stuck in the flow. One person has died in a mudslide, while three others are missing after their car was swept away in Amanzimtoti, with two bodies located so far and the search for the third continuing. The storms have also led to a wall collapse that claimed a woman’s life, bringing the known death toll to at least two with fears it could rise. As parents keep kids inside and residents mop up, many share stories of the sudden rush of water that turned quiet neighbourhoods into rivers in minutes.

In a region known for its beautiful beaches and holiday vibes, this disaster reminds us how quickly weather can change plans, calling for better preparation to protect lives and homes. As the year ends, many pray for drier days ahead, ensuring the south coast stays a place of joy, not worry.

Earlier in the week, the last time GDACS presented their daily update of severe weather, the list of countries experiencing the severest of storms and flooding included Argentina, Paraguay, Indonesia, France, Iran, USA and the United Arab Emirates, with warnings of flooding in Poland and United Kingdom. Disaster management agencies have been kept busy in these countries.

I am glad to note that the ARRL is promoting the dual-band hand-held Yagi developed in South Africa, and exported to them for sale to American hams to use with lightweight mobile transceivers to make contacts via satellites. As far as I can see they have already issued two short teaching YouTube videos on the availability and the assembly of the antennas. Originally designed by Martin Steyer DK7ZB, and then modified by Larry Brown WB5CXC, it was later redesigned and rebuilt by Guy Eales ZS6GUY and Gary Immelman ZS6YI, and the latter two hams are to be congratulated for developing a simple design that has attracted the attention of the ARRL.

It is available in South Africa for interested parties at amsatsa.org.za.

An item triggering my memory as I write this is the magnitude 9.2 earthquake off the coasts of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in Northern Sumatra, on 26^th December 2004, causing a massive tsunami with waves as high as 30 metres tall, devastating communities along the surrounding coasts of the Indian Ocean, and killing an estimated 228000 people in 14 countries.

You may remember amateur radio’s role in that quake and tsunami, with a group of Indian radio amateurs, led by Bharathi Prasad VU2RBI, coincidentally visiting the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on a DXpedition, and able to scramble to a high site on Andaman, and maintain radio communications for the area

A second station was established on Car Nicobar Island, one of the most affected islands by another member of the DXpedition, S. Ram Mohan, VU2MYH, and amateur radio remained the only means of communication from the Andaman and Nicobar islands for many days.

That DXpedition’s team allowed thousands of families to hear news of loved ones in the affected areas, and persuaded authorities to legalize amateur radio in the Andaman Islands.

We remember that time 21 years ago, and marvel at the effect amateur radio had on the communications during the disaster.

Another disaster and mystery in the area concerns the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH-370, a Boeing 777, which dramatically diverted from its planned flight path and seems to have vanished in the south eastern Indian Ocean on 8^th March 2014, and has never been found.

Several international searches have been instituted since then without success. A major deep sea research, search and rescue company called Ocean Infinity, which has specialized ships with autonomous undersea drones, has been involved in previous searches, so far without success in finding the plane, the last being called off in March this year due to developing winter weather in the search area.

Ocean Infinity is desperately concerned with the search and recovery of details of the whereabouts of the wreckage, and has signed a contract with the Malaysian government to keep looking on a no-find, no-fee basis. They are on the point of resuming the search within the next couple of days, with a brand new ship, Armada 86 05, due to resume searching on 30^th December, when it reaches the area last searched in March this year.

239 lives were lost on that aircraft, 239 families still cannot bring closure to their loved one’s final outcomes, and Ocean Infinity is going to spend another 55 days tracking the parts of the Indian Ocean most likely to conceal the remains of the plane. At an ocean depth of some 4000 metres in the area, those autonomous underwater rovers are going to have to earn their reputations in the next two months.

Did you notice the milestone passed this weekend when the satellite Voyager One, now the furthest man-made object away from Earth, reached a distance of one light-day away from us? In other words, a signal sent by the Deep Space Network takes 24 hours travelling at the speed of light to reach Voyager One, and the answer back takes another 24 hours to get to us! You can’t be in a hurry communicating with Voyager One. And the power consumed by its transmitter is the same as that used by a typical home fridge door lightbulb. However the Deep Space Network can still extract its data from the background radio noise!

Finally, someone has done the research to determine how far intelligible radio signals (to our ears) have travelled since the first voice transmissions were emitted in 1906, by Aubrey Fessenden. The strength of the signals transmitted are reduced by the square of the distance travelled, so must now be extremely weak, but the distance travelled is of course 119 lightyears. This “sphere” of signals is called Earth’s Radio Bubble, and has a total diameter of (double that) 238 light years. Put in perspective, it would take those first signals 23000 years to reach our edge of the Milky Way, and 77000 years to reach the far edge of our galaxy.

Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us is only 4.24 light years away, so they have been battered by our radio noise for 115 years already, and have probably heard all episodes of Dallas, Downton Abbey, the Carol Burnett Show, the Goons, and countless thousands of rugby match commentaries!

But don’t expect any listener reviews back from them in a hurry. They are probably too busy developing noise filters to cut our QRM out completely!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, wishing you all a splendid 2026 in a peaceful world (I hope), and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

It is with a sinking feeling that I must report that the days in the Southern Hemisphere start getting shorter from today. Woe is me – I prefer the warm weather and long sunsets.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Between Wednesday and Friday this week, GDACS reported flooding in Bolivia, DRC, Malaysia, Palestine, Morocco, the Northwest USA, Spain and Brazil,  as well as heavy snowfall in Canada, forest fires in Chile, landslides in Vietnam, bushfires in Australia and continued violence and forced displacements in Mozambique.

eNCA reports that KwaZulu-Natal disaster management authorities are on high alert amid yet another weather warning. The South African Weather Service has issued a Level 5 and a Level 2 warning.

The Level 5 warning affects the Western, Midlands, and Northern parts of the province and the Level 2 warning affects coastal areas.

There’s a high probability of flooding, mudslides, rock-falls and soil erosion.

Level 2 warnings also affect Gauteng, the North West, Free State, Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape.

Reporting from the Western Cape, I am lucky to be free of these dangers.

Keith Lowes ZS5WFD of HAMNET KZN has sent me a report of the Upper Highway Trail Marathon held on 6^th December 2025. He writes:

“HAMNET-KZN deployed 7 members who once again partnered with S.T.A.R.T Rescue (Specialised Tactical Accident Rescue Team) and Redline Response Ambulance to assist with communications for this popular annual event.

“A Joint Operations Centre (JOC) was established at the beautiful Start and Finish venue of Camp Orchards in Hillcrest which was manned by Provincial Director Keith Lowes ZS5WFD for HAMNET and Brad Cool for the S.T.A.R.T Rescue team members.  HAMNET made use of the Highway Amateur Radio Club’s 145.7625 repeater situated in Kloof and 145.550 Simplex which gave us excellent coverage of the whole route. The route took runners through 7 Nature Conservancies, 6 river eco-systems, 3 scenic waterfalls and some of the most beautiful trails in the area.

“142 runners started the 42Km race at 05H30 with 6 Water Points, whilst 437 runners started the 21Km event at 06H00 with 3 Water Points on route. The last runner crossed the finish line at 15H15.

“Trail conditions were wet and slippery with cloudy/overcast and light rain persisting for the duration of the event.

“I am pleased to report that no serious medical emergencies were experienced apart from the usual cuts/grazes and sprained ankles. If you didn’t bleed, you weren’t trying hard enough!!!! An ambulance was dispatched at 09H20 to Watsonia Place to assist a patient who was not part of the Trail Event.

“Recently acquired SARL HAMNET EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS tear-drop banners drew the public’s attention to our activities at strategic points along the route.

“This was our final sporting event for the year. I wish to extend my sincere thanks to my HAMNET KZN team for their dedication and loyal support during the year. You may take a well-earned break with your families but please remain vigilant and be available should a call for HAMNET’S assistance be received during the festive period.”

Thank you, Keith, for the report, and for your never-failing contribution to HAMNET in KZN.

Now, if you think we have problems driving our vehicles on the roads, spare a thought for the folks who have to manoeuvre satellites out of each other’s way. With reference to solar flares and geomagnetic storms that influence GPS positioning, Jonathan O’Callaghan, writing in newscientist.com, says that satellites in orbit would begin to collide in a matter of days if they lost maneuverability during a solar storm or other outage

A collision would occur in just 2.8 days if all satellites lost their ability to dodge each other, highlighting how crowded Earth’s orbit is becoming.

In the past seven years, the number of satellites has more than tripled from 4000 to nearly 14,000. The main cause of this growth has been SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which now numbers more than 9000 satellites in low Earth orbit between 340 and 550 kilometres above Earth.

This large increase means satellites must constantly dodge out of the way of each other, known as a collision avoidance manoeuvre, to prevent crashes that would generate thousands of pieces of metal and potentially render parts of Earth’s orbit unusable.

From 1 December 2024 to 31 May 2025, SpaceX alone performed 144,404 collision avoidance manoeuvres, equivalent to one every 1.8 minutes across its constellation, according to a report by the company. Only one collision between satellites in orbit has ever occurred. In 2009, an active satellite run by Iridium Communications hit a defunct Russian Kosmos satellite. Hundreds of pieces of debris from the event still orbit Earth.

Sarah Thiele at Princeton University and her colleagues used public positional data of satellites to model how their increased number has affected the collision risk. They came up with a new metric, called the Collision Realization And Significant Harm (CRASH) Clock to quantify the risk. The name invites comparisons with the infamous Doomsday Clock that charts humanity’s threat of nuclear war. “We definitely talked about that a lot,” says Samantha Lawler at the University of Regina in Canada, another member of the team.

Thanks to newscientist.com for that cheerful news.

It remains now only for me to wish all of my readers and listeners a very happy festive season, celebrating appropriately, and responsibly, looking after your loved ones, and doing for them that which you would like being done for you.

I’d like to greet Hans van den Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, who has been steering this ARToday ship for many years, and thank him for putting together a programme of interesting hobby stuff so faithfully every week, and also the Councilors and Admin of the SARL, and thank them for all they do to keep our hobby safe and progressive. I think we, as the benefitting radio amateurs, don’t appreciate enough the work that goes on behind the scenes to keep the wheels rolling.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, reporting from sunny Cape Town, for HAMNET in South Africa.

In continuing news from Indonesia, GDACS says that the death toll from severe flooding in Indonesia, particularly in northern Sumatra, has been increasing since 17 November.

As of 10 December, the National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) reported 977 fatalities, with Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra being the most affected provinces. There are also 260 missing individuals and 5,037 injured people reported. Additionally, approximately 159,000 homes and 3,296 public facilities have been damaged.

So that disaster is not over yet.

Aljazeera says that more than two million people – nearly 10 percent of the population of Sri Lanka – have been affected by last week’s climate crisis-spurred floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone DITWAH, the worst on the island this century.

The government has confirmed 639 deaths – 464 from the lush tea-growing central region – while 209 people remain unaccounted for. The number of people in state-run refugee camps had dropped to 100,000 from a peak of 225,000 as floodwaters receded across the island by last Sunday, the DMC said.

More than 75,000 homes were damaged, including close to 5,000 that were completely destroyed, it added.

The National Sea Rescue Institute says that it joined the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre (WCDMC) and key emergency stakeholders at the official launch of the 2025/26 Summer Season Readiness Initiative, a province-wide commitment to ensure coordinated, rapid emergency response during the busiest and highest-risk season.

The annual readiness initiative brings together provincial and municipal disaster managers, emergency services and non-profit response organisations in the Western Cape to prepare for heightened risks associated with increased recreational water use, fire danger, extreme weather, and growing demands on first responders.

At the event, the NSRI formally acknowledged the Western Cape Government and WCDMC for their long-standing support, including a new grant of R408, 000 awarded for Swift Water Rescue training in the 2025/26 season.

“Strong disaster preparedness is built on strong partnerships,” said Dirk Coetzee, NSRI Business Development Manager.

“This investment is about readiness, not reaction, and directly improves our ability to respond swiftly and safely during flood and storm events.”

The specialised training, supported by the grant, will equip NSRI’s volunteer crews with advanced skills for operating in fast-moving, high-risk environments, such as rivers, canals, and flooded urban areas.

As the summer season intensifies, the NSRI urges all beachgoers, inland water users, and tourists to remain vigilant, tocheck weather forecasts, respect signage and tide warnings, and familiarise themselves with local emergency numbers.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ has issued a report of the Earthquake Response Exercise held in the Eastern Cape in the first week of December.

He notes that its purpose was to test search and rescue operations, inter-agency coordination, communication and command systems, emergency medical response, evacuation and logistics, humanitarian coordination and post-disaster recovery planning.

United Nations and international teams were present at a workshop session on the Monday, before a “tropical storm” made landfall near Port Elizabeth, followed shortly thereafter by a magnitude 6.9 “earthquake” just offshore, in this imaginary scenario.

A variety of protocols were then followed, including a classification of the event as a National Disaster with attendant inter-agency coordination, communication and command systems, emergency medical responses, evacuation and logistics, humanitarian coordination and post-disaster recovery planning.

On the Tuesday National search and rescue teams were deployed, helping to manage arriving international search and rescue teams at the airport.

Team USAR SA-01 established a Base of Operations (BOO) and a USAR Coordination Cell (UCC) from where the team was managed and assigned tasks, such as a high level reconnaissance of the sector assigned to them.

The Local Emergency Management Authority (LEMA) also arranged that HAMNET Eastern Cape, under the leadership of Andrew Gray ZS2G and assisted by Odette ZS2ODI, which had also been activated, made contact with the UCC and established Amateur Radio communications as a backup should there be communications failure with the various parts of the province that were affected by the disaster. The HAMNET Eastern Cape team members also volunteered to assist with other tasks within the UCC.

On Wednesday, “disgruntled” local citizens arrived, demanding immediate assistance, which crisis was professionally handled by the Liaison Officer in charge of the UCC. Further stressful scenarios played out during the day, and were handled by the UCC team and Metro Police and SAPS.

By Thursday, the exercise was winding down, and the South Africans then managed the departure of the international teams back to the airport again.

This was the first exercise of this magnitude that has involved so many role players and it was an overall success, with everyone learning a lot from the fellow participants as there was always time to explain a process where required.

It was also a first for HAMNET and while there were only a few HAMNET members involved there is a lot of knowledge that needs to be passed on in the next year so that more of our members can be ready to assist when they are called to duty, and can work seamlessly with other organisations doing what we do best, providing emergency communications when other channels fail.

Thank you Brian for allowing me to precis this report.

Here’s a problem I hadn’t bargained for when I was musing about relocating to Mars, as soon as the sky-train starts operating of course. Writing in skyatnightmagazine.com, Iain Todd says that clocks on Mars tick faster than on Earth by nearly half a millisecond a day, according to new calculations – and the implications for future missions to the Red Planet could be significant.

Neil Ashby and Bijunath Patla at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology calculated that a clock on Mars ticks 477 microseconds faster per day than one on Earth. That rate can also shift by 226 microseconds a day, depending on Mars’s distance from the Sun.

The effect comes from general relativity: weaker gravity and orbital motion alter spacetime, changing how time flows.

Surface gravity on Mars is just 38% that of Earth, meaning a second on the Red Planet is slightly shorter than for us on our planet.

Why does it matter? Well, if you’re trying to communicate with a rover using radio waves travelling at the speed of light, microseconds count.

Even the 56-microsecond delay in radio communications between Earth and the Moon means lunar targets could be missed by the length of about 184 football fields – and Mars is much farther away.

Luckily, we already correct for similar effects in GPS satellites, whose clocks run faster than those on Earth – otherwise your phone’s GPS would be misaligned by miles after only a few hours.

But it gets a lot more complicated when you are scaling that solution to deal with interplanetary distances, for worlds with different gravities that are moving closer and further from the Sun’s gravitational influence.

This of course means that I will get older more quickly if I live on Mars. Sounds like a very bad idea to me. I’d better cancel that sky-train reservation post haste!

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

What seemed to be a fairly unimportant and minor tropical storm threatening Sri Lanka and South-east India, turned into Tropical Cyclone DITWAH, which arose about a week ago, and triggered severe flooding and landslides. By Friday, GDACS was reporting 479 deaths in Sri Lanka, another 350 people missing, and a total of 1.7 million individuals affected by flooding in one way or another.

Greg Mossop G0DUB drew our attention to a communique from the President of the Radio Society of Sri Lanka (RSSL), the national IARU Member Society representing licensed amateur radio operators in Sri Lanka, wishing formally to notify the international amateur radio community that Sri Lanka is currently experiencing severe and widespread flooding, resulting in significant disruption to telecommunication networks and essential infrastructure.

Theranga Premathilake, call sign 4S6TMP, said that, at the request of the Disaster Management Centre (DMC) and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL), RSSL has mobilized and deployed trained volunteer amateur radio operators across several affected districts to provide Emergency Communications (EmComm) where conventional systems have failed.

In order to maintain and expand these critical communication links during the ongoing crisis, the RSSL urgently requires additional equipment. He respectfully requested assistance from IARU Member Societies, global amateur radio communities, EmComm groups, and supporting donors to help supply HF and VHF base radios, handheld VHF/UHF radios, and rechargeable power packs to help the amateurs to keep lines of communication up and running around the country.

He noted further that any support, whether through equipment donations, financial facilitation, or procurement assistance will directly strengthen Sri Lanka’s disaster response capabilities at this critical time.

Although the coast of India was also threatened by DITWAH, there has been no news of similar flooding or casualties in that country.

Indonesia, Thailand and Sumatra, however, are still affected by heavy rainfall, with 770 deaths in Sumatra and 185 in Thailand reported by the end of the week, with about 830 people still missing in the two countries, and at least a million people displaced by flooding.

And by Tuesday, Tropical Cyclone KOTO, with maximum wind speeds of 150 km/h was crossing Philippines and aiming at Vietnam next. Luckily, it appeared to be weakening as it approached Vietnam.

Newsweek.com reported on Monday that NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a sunspot—labeled Active Region (AR) 4294-96—which is the largest recorded in a decade, and which is expected to trigger further solar flares in the coming weeks.

An X1.9-class solar flare was detected by Earth-orbiting satellites on the same day, although, according to SpaceWeather.com, it actually originated from a smaller sunspot—named AR 4295, rather than the giant one.

However, 4294 is impressively massive, in photos taken of the sun’s disk this week, much bigger than the sunspot of two weeks ago that generated the X5.1-class flare which caused such beautiful auroras in northern and southern latitudes, and blanked out radio communications so effectively. It remains to be seen whether 4294 impresses us with solar high jinks this week.

Universetoday.com notes that it’s been over two years since the samples from Asteroid Bennu gathered by the satellite OSIRIS-REx were returned to Earth. But there’s still plenty of novel science coming out of that 121.6 g of material. Three new papers were released recently that describe different aspects of that sample. One in particular, from Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan and their co-authors, has already attracted plenty of attention, including from US Senator (and former astronaut) Mark Kelly. It shows that all of the building blocks for early life were available on the asteroid – raising the chances that planets throughout the galaxy could be seeded with the abiotic precursors for life.

To be clear, the most recent paper itself didn’t first discover all of the necessary ingredients for life. Two of the parts of the “molecular trifecta” required for the origin of life were already discovered on Bennu. Nucleobases – the molecules that make up the sequence of DNA – and amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – were previously discovered and disclosed in other papers on the asteroid.

After subjecting a 600 mg sample of the pristine surface material of Bennu to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the researchers found two additional types of “sugars” for the first time. But don’t think of these sugars as equivalent to the high fructose corn syrup used to sweeten Twinkies. These sugars are basic organic molecules integral to the functioning of all biological systems known on Earth.

One new sugar they found was ribose, the molecule that serves as the backbone of RNA (or ribonucleic acid). RNA is a critical component of modern life, and perhaps most famously recently served as the base for many of COVID-19 vaccines. Granted, the total concentration of ribose was very small, with a concentration of only .097 nanomoles per gram of asteroid material. But the most important thing about this finding is that it was there at all.

There’s an ongoing debate about the origin of life, where some scientists suggest that, instead of having complex DNA in the beginning, early life was based on RNA instead as its information transfer mechanism. This study adds some more evidence for that hypothesis, showing that all the components of RNA are available on an asteroid, and can be protected from the destructive radiation of outer space by being trapped in rocky aggregates – until they land on a receptive planet’s surface at least. This also undermines the argument that ribose is too unstable to have accumulated on early Earth, when life would have first started.

At its core, this paper confirms that the potential basic building blocks of life are all present on asteroids. And more importantly on only the second asteroid we’ve ever sampled – which implies that they are likely abundant not only throughout our solar system, but throughout our galaxy. That has major implications for the study of life on other worlds, and while we still haven’t found definitive evidence of that yet, the more we learn about the evolution of life in our own backyard, the more exciting the prospect of eventually finding it elsewhere seems to be.

This is Dave Reece, ZS1DFR, wondering whether I can sweeten my tea with two spoons of Bennu, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.