May I start by wishing you all a very healthy and happy 2026? May your appreciation of amateur radio, and the service you can offer to others using ham radio, expand and develop in the coming year.
Greg Mossop G0DUB, the IARU Region One Emergency Communications Coordinator has issued a greetings bulletin at the start of the New Year. In it, he mentions that 25 events, activities, or disasters were managed by the IARU Region One Emcomm operators, in the 5 year period since 2020.
He notes: “When you look through them you will wonder why some countries events are not reported, or why other events get mentioned which you did not even know about. Sharing information between our groups is useful so we can learn from each other, and it also helps us understand we are not alone and even if we live in countries where we are not called for often, amateur radio does still have a role and we can use these examples to inform our authorities.
“I am hoping for a more balanced year ahead with more focus on training than administration and more time to promote what we do to a wider audience. My thanks to you, your families and all of your volunteers across the region for your support of Emergency Communications this year and I hope you all have a happy, healthy and safe 2026.”
Thank you Greg, we in South Africa reciprocate your greetings. We are very grateful to you for the professional lead you take and the guidance we all receive.
Thursday the 1st marked the 125th anniversary of the Lizard Wireless Station’s inauguration at a remarkable clifftop site in Cornwall, on the English west coast, that played a pivotal role in the early history of wireless communication and helped change how the world connects.
Voicenewspapers.co.uk says that it was opened on the first of January 1901, and became one of the first commercial wireless telegraphy stations in the world, communicating with ships up to 80 miles away and pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible at the time.
Later that same month, the station achieved a world record when it successfully received a wireless signal from St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight – proving for the first time that radio waves could follow the curvature of the Earth.
This breakthrough paved the way for long-distance communication and laid crucial groundwork for Guglielmo Marconi’s famous transatlantic transmission from nearby Poldhu later that year.
Today, the Lizard Wireless Station remains a place where history is not only preserved but actively lived.
Cared for by the National Trust and supported by passionate volunteers, the site continues to operate as an amateur radio station, connecting modern radio enthusiasts with the very landscape and conditions that made these early experiments possible.
To mark the 125th anniversary, the station’s historic call sign GB125LWS will be active throughout January, and visitors will be welcomed inside, offering a rare glimpse into a site where global communication history was made.
A review in irishtimes.com says that the 10 most costly climate-related disasters in 2025 caused 100 billion Euros worth of damage. The analysis carried out for Christian Aid shows the wildfires that raged in California last January were the most expensive in financial terms, assessed at more than €51 billion.
A spate of cyclones and associated extreme rain and flooding in November killed 1,750 people and cost at least $25 billion in Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Malaysia. Extreme flooding in China, India and Pakistan; back-to-back typhoons in the Philippines, Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, floods in Texas and a prolonged drought in Brazil each caused damages exceeding $1 billion while hundreds of people died.
Wildfires destroyed 47,000 hectares of moor, woodland and highlands in Britain; 260,000 hectares in Portugal and 383,000 hectares in Spain.
Drought crippled several countries in South America, Iran and west Asia while floods caused devastation in Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.
“The world is paying an ever-higher price for a crisis we already know how to solve,” said Joanna Haigh, emeritus professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London.
“These disasters are not ‘natural’ – they are the inevitable result of continued fossil fuel expansion and political delay.”
Christian Aid said while the high bills arose in richer countries, the impact of climate-related disasters was disproportionately severe in poorer countries.
They said that “long-pledged financial support is still not flowing to developing countries at the scale and speed required.
“In 2026, world leaders must address this injustice and act with urgency. This means meeting our climate finance targets, investing in climate action, and breaking our dependence on fossil fuels urgently to reduce emissions.”
Thank you to irishtimes.com for that news.
A report from indiandefencereview.com says that, high above storm clouds where commercial jets don’t fly and conventional satellites cannot observe in detail, scientists have begun collecting data on elusive electrical discharges known as transient luminous events (TLEs). These phenomena include red sprites, blue jets, and ELVES—brief, high-altitude bursts of light triggered by lightning that occur far above thunderclouds.
From the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts are now documenting these discharges with unprecedented precision. Instruments installed outside the station are capturing high-speed images and radiation measurements, giving scientists fresh insight into how these flashes may affect Earth’s atmosphere, long-distance radio communications, and even climate processes.
The renewed focus on storm-generated upper-atmospheric electricity is reshaping how researchers understand severe weather systems. By viewing lightning activity from orbit, space agencies are opening a new frontier in atmospheric research, offering evidence that storm energy often travels far beyond the visible storm cloud.
The ESA’s Atmosphere–Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), installed on the ISS in 2018, plays a central role in observing upper-atmospheric lightning. Built by Danish aerospace firm Terma and operated from a control centre in Belgium, ASIM is designed to detect light, ultraviolet radiation, and X-rays from rare electrical phenomena occurring between 20 and 100 kilometres above Earth’s surface.
Its position outside the station allows it to record events above large thunderstorm systems, particularly in equatorial regions. ASIM’s instruments include high-speed photometers and X-ray sensors that identify and record brief discharges like ELVES, which appear as large, expanding rings of light, and red sprites, which look like vertical bursts resembling jellyfish.
Earth.com noted that ASIM confirmed that lightning-like discharges can emit enough electromagnetic energy to reach the ionosphere, the charged layer of the atmosphere that supports long-range radio communication. These vertical pulses, triggered by storm activity, may influence how radio signals travel across continents, creating potential disruptions to aviation, naval and military communications systems, (not to mention signals of radio amateurs).
Thanks to indiandefencereview.com for these paragraphs.
This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.