Since last weekend, KwaZulu Natal has been experiencing extreme rainfall conditions. The death toll during the flooding has risen to nine individuals. An orange level 5 warning for severe thunderstorms across uMdoni, eThekwini, uMkhambathini, Ray Nkonyeni, and uMzumbe municipalities was issued, and Durban and the South Coast were hard hit.

The Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Rev Thulasizwe Buthelezi warned that the rain was expected to impact road infrastructure in and around the eThekwini Metro which was already experiencing flooding, underscoring the severity of the situation. About 160 affected people from Lamontville were relocated to temporary decent accommodation while a permanent solution for their discomfort was being sought.

ENCA reports that Gift of the Givers is expressing its frustration with the KwaZulu-Natal government. This comes as thousands have once again been displaced by heavy rains and flooding. The aid organization says government must stop reacting and put preventative measures in place.

Meanwhile, affected residents are trying to rebuild their lives as families come to terms with the loss of loved ones.

Human Settlements Minister Thembi Simelane was expected to visit Durban this past week to assess government’s response to the disaster.

As I transmit this, the Cape Town Cycle Tour, previously called the Argus Cycle Tour, is taking place. The 109km long route started anywhere from 06h15 to 08h57, depending on your seeding, and the shorter 42km race started at 10h00.

The cut off for the long race is 5pm, but the cut off for the 42km race is 2pm, so just 4 hours for the short race. The weather is predicted to be clear, and hopefully not too hot, but the killing factor is usually the wind, which can make life very difficult for the return trip from the southern peninsula back to the Cape Town finish.

HAMNET is not directly involved in the comms for this race, but we are always on standby if a disaster of some sort strikes. Our regional director Michael ZS1MJT has a daughter doing her first race today, so we’ll hear all the sweaty detail during the coming week.

Michael’s other daughter lives in Australia, in Brisbane to be precise, and on the promontory in front of Brisbane, directly exposed to Tropical Cyclone ALFRED, which will have crossed the shores from directly east by the time this bulletin is heard.

Australians have been watching the Cyclone for several days now, as it hovered a couple of hundred kilometres off the coast, and felt the dread build up, as ALFRED decided to take a very slow and leisurely approach to the coast line. Winds have been extreme, whipping up enormous waves, and rainfall has been aplenty, though, by Friday evening our time, the storm had not yet crossed the coast.

Michael reassures me that his daughter and her husband have very sensibly taken their campervan, and driven off 250km to the  west, and are staying at a camping resort until the storm has lost strength, which is expected to happen once ALFRED makes landfall.

The Queensland authorities have sensibly been very proactive in their preparations for the arrival of ALFRED, encouraging evacuations, shoring up coastal properties with sandbags, and opening shelters early in case houses are destroyed. By Friday evening, our time, 330000 houses were already without power.

The storm struck the coastline at about 1am Saturday morning, their time, and fortunately diminished in strength to become a Tropical Low, by definition. That didn’t stop 100 to 110 km/h winds, the uprooting of trees, damage to houses and cars, and the destruction of powerlines. As of Saturday evening, Australian time, no casualties had been reported.

Writing in theconversation.com, Savannah Meacham says that she is experiencing retraumatisation, where we re-live stress reactions experienced as a result of previous traumatic events when faced with a new, similar incident.

As a researcher in emergency responses to a broad range of disasters, Savannah says she understands why she is feeling like this. However, many people may not realize the stress they are experiencing right now is related to an earlier disaster or traumatic event in their life. That earlier disaster could be another cyclone, or a different event, such as a flood or bushfire.

Some signs and symptoms of retraumatisation might be:

Intrusive thoughts

Nightmares and having trouble sleeping

Hypervigilance (for example, feeling “on edge” all day)

Sensitivity to triggers such as loud noises

Feelings of isolation

Thinking about, planning or even attempting suicide

Panic attacks

Using/abusing substances, such as alcohol and other drugs, and

An increase in unhealthy behaviours (for example, being more prone to aggression or violence).

Cyclone Alfred may be awakening memories and feelings, and the re-emergence of those stress reactions can be confronting. It can feel like re-opening a wound that hasn’t quite healed.

People begin to understand the effects of being exposed to multiple disasters – bushfires, cyclones, floods, and let’s not forget the COVID pandemic – that erode our resilience.

This type of multiple exposure influences our feelings of safety, security and even our hope for the future, all increasing the risk of poorer mental health.

For people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), retraumatisation may cause them to relive their past traumas in intense detail. It can feel like past traumatic events are happening all over again.

Thank you to Savannah for explaining why we feel what we feel.

Well, one good thing, people, is that the threatening asteroid, named 2024 YR4, which was anticipated potentially to hit earth in 2032, has now been more precisely tracked, and the risk of collision with earth has been reduced from a 2.8% risk originally, and now stands at 0.001%, which is regarded in scientific circles as essentially zero! I’m sure you’ll agree this is very reassuring indeed.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, feeling safe to hang out the washing after all, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

An unexpected Tropical Cyclone, called GARANCE, developed East of Madagascar this week suddenly, but, unlike others which usually travel west towards eastern Africa, this one travelled east and then south east.

Phys.org/news says that CYCLONE GARANCE barreled across La Reunion Island on Friday killing at least two people as fierce winds left destruction across the French Indian Ocean territory, according to authorities.

Winds of up to 230 kilometers per hour battered the territory of 900,000 people and the storm earlier forced the closure of the main airport on nearby Mauritius.

One woman in her 50s was probably sucked into a sewer pipe and swept away in torrential water, the local prefect said, describing the storm as “brutal and violent”. A man was killed in an electrical fire and another person is missing, the prefecture said.

Some 180,000 households were without power, 80,000 without water while 114,000 people had lost mobile phone coverage, according to authorities. Residents posted pictures online of uprooted trees, torn-off roofs and flooded homes. Entire streets were inundated and cars washed away.

Authorities imposed a maximum alert for several hours on Friday, confining the entire population—including law enforcement and emergency services—to homes and offices. That was eventually eased so that police and emergency services could get out but authorities still ordered the rest of the population to remain indoors.

GARANCE landed on the island’s north and shifted south before heading back out to sea. And, while the violent gusts and torrential rain eased, heavy rain and strong winds persisted.

Around 100 troops and firefighters were to be dispatched from Mayotte—a French territory nearly 1,500 kilometers away—as soon as weather conditions permit. Another 100 were to go there from mainland France.

La Reunion and Mauritius—around 225 kilometers to the northeast—had been on high alert since Wednesday. Mauritius shut its main airport on Wednesday, while La Reunion did the same on Thursday.

Curiously, there has been little mention in weather circles, of a fairly strong looking storm cell at the bottom corner of Madagascar, and appearing to be drifting in a south-easterly direction away from the coast of eastern South Africa. It looks more extreme than the cloud cover over the French Islands associated with GARANCE.

When Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ, formerly deputy National Director of HAMNET, sent me the report on the Ride for Sight last week, he included some other news of interest to us. He wrote:

“On Wednesday 19 February, Brian ZS6YZ, Leon ZS6LMG and Johan ZS6DMX attended a training session with the USAR SA-01 team at the Centurion Fire Station. It was yet another rainy day and the team practised their rope skills indoors in the huge hanger where the fire trucks are stored.

“Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) are a dedicated and highly skilled and trained team of search and rescue specialists from various municipal and provincial fire and EMS stations in Gauteng. HAMNET has been selected to be their communications specialists and we were requested to attend the USAR training to meet the team and to get to understand how they work and what their communications challenges would be in the field. HAMNET’s primary and only role is to provide communications to the team, both internally within the team and in the field wherever they may be needed.

“This could include underground in caves or mine shafts, in the water or in the mountains. Communications could be needed between the team and their base as well as back to the Disaster Management Centres to which they report. This could include international deployments, as the USAR teams worldwide are all trained to the same international UN standards coordinated by The International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG).

“HAMNET and USAR SA have already started with formalising an agreement between them.”

Thanks Brian, and best wishes for rapid progress between the groups.

Those of you, like me, whose curiosity is still piqued by what happened to Malaysian flight MH370, over 10 years ago, may be interested to know that the new search that has been started by a private underwater search and rescue company, is being reported on daily by a YouTube channel called “Airline News with Geoffrey Thomas”.

Some months ago, the amateur fraternity was split over some research done by a British Aerospace Engineer called Richard Godfrey, our own Dr Hannes Coetzee ZS6BZP, and Professor Simon Maskell, who published a lengthy paper called “The MH370 Case Study” describing how they had used perturbations in WSPR transmissions between Australia and Switzerland, to demonstrate a path for the metal aircraft that was MH-370 in the southerly direction it appeared to have taken that night. Their research showed that the search area previously studied did not include the likely resting place at the bottom of the ocean.

Naysayers in the amateur radio community thought it highly unlikely that you could prove anything with WSPR perturbations, but the organisers of the new search are taking all suggestions seriously, and the physics of unexpected fluctuations in weak signal propagation have encouraged the searchers to look at the possibilities created by the research.

Anyway, Geoffrey Thomas and Richard Godfrey co-host a daily 20 minute video, which has been going for the last 8 days or so, and can be easily found on YouTube, if you want to see what the ship called Armada 78 06 has done so far, and what its unmanned underwater robots have scanned. As of Friday night, nothing had come to light, when the ship returned to Freemantle for provisions and fuel. Most of the results of the deep sea scans (at 4600 metres below the surface, mind you) will only become available later as their scans of the ocean floor are analysed.

The search area is amongst some Tropical Cyclones, but the seas are reasonably manageable now, and the search will continue by the private company, on a no find, no fee basis.

When I wrote about Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ, higher up in this bulletin, I didn’t yet know he has been promoted to Top Brass in the HAMNET organisation. Grant Southey ZS6GS has stepped down, and his space taken by Brian, who has been very active in matters amateur radio, the field of beacons, and the work of HAMNET Gauteng. So Brian is no stranger to us, or to the responsibility he will carry, and I wish him well. Congratulations too, to Keith Howes, ZS5WFD, who assumes deputy national directorship in Brian’s footsteps. Keith already has a big reputation in HAMNET organizational skills.

I also thank Grant ZS6GS for the leadership roles he has played for at least 10 years, and wish him well in his retirement.

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

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.

Popular Mechanics has an article this week suggesting that for millennia, defining consciousness—both what it is and when it emerges—has been the tricky business of scientists and philosophers (and more recently, AI experts). And one of the biggest black holes in our knowledge, even though every human has experienced it, is exploring consciousness when we’re young – like, newborn young.

To explore this confounding gap in our understanding, neuroscientists and philosophers from Australia’s Monash University, Germany’s University of Tübingen, Ireland’s Trinity College Dublin, and the University of Minnesota in the U.S. conducted a widespread review of the literature surrounding prenatal and newborn consciousness.

Although the prevailing theory throughout the 20th century was that consciousness didn’t develop until many months after birth, this new research argues that consciousness could occur much earlier and even possibly in the final month of pregnancy. The researchers published their findings in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

“Nearly everyone who has held a newborn infant has wondered what, if anything, it is like to be a baby,” Tim Bayne, co-author and professor of Philosophy at Monash University, said in a press statement. “But of course we cannot remember our infancy, and consciousness researchers have disagreed on whether consciousness arises ‘early’ (at birth or shortly after) or ‘late’—by one year of age, or even much later.”

This study tracked consciousness across four key markers: functional connectivity, frontal brain networks, multisensory integration, and neural markers of perceptual consciousness. While these four markers possibly begin at different times—multisensory integration, for example, shows up last in the lineup—it nonetheless shows the dynamic process through which human consciousness could arise.

“Our findings suggest that newborns can integrate sensory and developing cognitive responses into coherent conscious experiences to understand the actions of others and plan their own responses,” Lorina Naci, co-author and associate professor of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, said in the press statement.

The study admits that this is only the tip of the consciousness iceberg, but confidently claims that the idea of newborns as mostly unconscious beings can be safely laid to rest. To further analyze the early days of human understanding, innovations in foetal magnetoencephalography (MEG), as well as improved methods in analyzing fMRI readings in awake infants, could yield even richer data.

So, while the philosophical debate that’s raged for thousands of years continues (and likely will, far into the future), science is slowly providing some clarity as to what it means to be a brand-new, conscious being.

Thanks to popularmechanics.com/science for that thought-provoking insight.

Focustaiwan.tw reports that Taiwan has donated two unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) command vehicles to the Turkish city of Istanbul to help boost its disaster preparedness.

At a donation ceremony on Tuesday, Taiwan’s representative to Turkey Huang Chih-yang said it was important to strengthen Istanbul’s disaster response capabilities, given the high risk of earthquakes in the region and the city’s dense population of over 16 million.

The two drone command vehicles, which carry high-tech equipment, support a new disaster relief model that uses the latest drone technology, Huang said.

The new model incorporates the experience of drone operators who have worked in disaster relief in both Turkey and Taiwan, he said. In response, Ergun Cebeci, head of the Istanbul disaster coordination center (AKOM), expressed thanks to Taiwan on behalf of the city government.

Cebeci said Istanbul is spread across mountains, forests, straits, and dense residential areas, which makes disaster response a diverse and complex operation.

The two UAV command vehicles, with their pioneering equipment, will enhance the city’s search and rescue capabilities, he said. Cebeci also voiced concern about the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that struck southern Taiwan on Tuesday and said he was pleased to hear that there were no fatalities.

In that Ethiopia’s Afar and Oromia regions have been hit by several earthquakes and tremors since the beginning of 2025, the strongest, with a magnitude of 5.7, striking on 4 January, theconversation.com notes that earthquakes and volcanic activity are both common in Ethiopia. The country is located in a geologically active region, the East African Rift System. But it’s rare for earthquakes to directly trigger volcanic eruptions in Ethiopia.

The current episode of earthquake activity is being caused by magmatic activity in Oromia and Afar region. Magma (molten rock) is intruding into the subsurface beneath two volcanoes, Fentale and Dofen, which are geographically close to each other.

Ethiopia has around 50 active volcanoes. Most are in the Ethiopian Rift, the northern segment of the East African Rift System. An active volcano has magma stored deep within its crust that could potentially erupt in the future. There’s evidence of past eruptions at many of these active volcanoes. Some date back hundreds of years. In contrast, a dormant volcano has not erupted for thousands of years and shows no immediate signs of reactivation or imminent eruption.

Volcanoes and earthquakes are both natural phenomena driven by the dynamic processes that shape Earth’s interior and surface.

The outermost layer of Earth, the lithosphere, is composed of solid rock and is broken into large sections called tectonic plates. These plates fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. They move slowly on the more fluid layer beneath them, the asthenosphere. Convection currents in Earth’s mantle drive the movement of tectonic plates.

Tectonic plates interact at their boundaries in three primary ways: they move apart, they collide, or they slide past one another. These interactions produce geological activity, including earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Most volcanoes and earthquakes occur along these plate boundaries, where the stress and movement of the plates cause the lithosphere to fracture.

Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes pose risks to human lives, infrastructure and the environment. These events cannot be prevented. But their effects can be mitigated by planning and acting ahead of time.

The authors quote monitoring and early warning systems as being critical, detailed maps that identify areas at risk essential, the establishment of efficient and trustworthy communications channels with clear comms protocols crucial, community preparedness and education being important, educating communities about the signs of volcanic activity and evacuation protocols important, and reserves of emergency supplies such as water, food, medical kit and shelter materials also being essential.

The qualification of specialized response teams with expertise in volcanology, seismology and disaster management can result in swift and coordinated action during these emergencies.

Thanks to theconversation.com for presenting this synopsis.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, transmitting on what would have been my Mother’s 114^th birthday, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

The ARRL has reported extensively on the ham volunteers who have been helping with communications during the devastating Los Angeles fires. In their newsletter of the 16th January, they say that trained amateur radio operators are serving critical volunteer roles to help officials spot fires before they get out of control. Dry conditions and wind gusts of up to 160km/h have fuelled days of devastating wildfires. Entire neighbourhoods have been levelled by infernos.

The Eaton fire burned to the top of Mount Wilson, a critical logistical post for broadcast radio and television stations, as well as communications across the Southland. Federal agencies, air traffic control, local emergency responders, radio amateurs, and others all share tower space on the mountain.

During severe fire weather, volunteers go to preassigned locations within parks and open spaces to report conditions. Many of them are hams, using the amateur radio bands to fill in mobile network weak zones. Radio amateurs are also ready and able to serve at evacuation centres, providing support as needed.

Members of ARRL Headquarters staff have been in touch with ARRL volunteers and other ham radio groups around the affected area, and are offering material support for any activations.

Thanks to the ARRL for these paragraphs from their newsletter. When I last heard, the death toll from the fires had reached at least 27.

In a press release on Thursday, the New Zealand Government says that it has delivered a funding boost to upgrade critical communication networks for Maritime New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand, ensuring frontline search and rescue services can save lives and keep Kiwis safe on the water, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. 

“New Zealand has one of the largest maritime search and rescue zones in the world. To coordinate search and rescue teams across vast distances, Maritime New Zealand rely upon the National Maritime Distress and Safety Communications Service (NMDSCS). Our Government is proud to announce we will be upgrading this vital piece of communications infrastructure to make it easier for Maritime New Zealand to undertake their lifesaving work,” Mr Brown says. 

“Modernising the NMDSCS will save lives. This funding will ensure the new system aligns with international standards and will enable Maritime New Zealand to handle high traffic on our waters effectively. Without this funding, there is a real risk to safety on the water as the existing system nears the end of its operational life.”

The Government is also supporting Coastguard New Zealand in upgrading its critical Very High Frequency (VHF) maritime radio network, replacing outdated infrastructure with modern and reliable technology.

“The VHF maritime radio network plays a crucial role in facilitating communication between vessels in need and rescue teams. However, the current system is outdated and in need of an upgrade to meet the increasing demands of our recreational and commercial maritime sectors,” Mr Brown says.

“This urgently needed investment will provide Coastguard with the reliable infrastructure required to respond to emergencies. The upgraded network will futureproof communications, providing a lifeline to those in distress and helping ensure Kiwis on the water make it home safely.” End quote.

The upgrades to both the NMDSCS and Coastguard’s VHF network come at a time when New Zealand’s maritime activities are growing, placing greater pressure on communication networks.

“Our Government’s upgrade of these core pieces of communication infrastructure will ensure that search and rescue operations on our waters are better resourced and prepared, particularly for busy summer seasons when the demand for these life-saving services is at its peak,” Mr Doocey says.

He said further that “Maritime New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand do an incredible job saving lives, and our Government is committed to strengthening their ability to respond to emergencies swiftly and effectively. This investment will strengthen New Zealand’s rescue resilience and improve safety on our waters.” 

Thanks to scoop.co.nz for this report.

Writing in reviewtimes.com/news/ Bonnie Jean Feldkamp notes that we’re living in divisive times. It’s something said so often that it’s become cliché. But collaboration across divides still happens, and the International Space Station is a great place to witness this in action. The ISS is entering its 25th year with crews on board modelling scientific collaboration on global research projects. Crew members also take time to share their enthusiasm for their work with kids across the globe using ham radio, also known as amateur radio.

Will Marchant is a retired aerospace engineer who now volunteers with Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), an organization that helps students worldwide experience the excitement of talking directly with ISS crew members. Marchant’s wife Anne emailed me after reading a previous column, thinking I might like to talk to her husband. She was right.

Marchant first got involved with amateur radio when working at the University of California’s Space Sciences Lab at Berkeley in the early 1990s. He helped work on the Extreme-Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE), which was a spinning spacecraft designed to rotate about the earth/sun line. “It was Berkeley’s first satellite,” he said.

It was there that Marchant learned about SAREX, the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, which placed ham radio stations aboard space shuttles. Owen K. Garriott was the first astronaut to chat with ham-radio enthusiasts on Earth while aboard the Columbia STS-9 mission in 1983.

Marchant, along with who he called his “fellow professional space geek engineers,” had the idea to connect school groups with astronauts. Luckily, right down the hill from the Space Sciences Lab is the Lawrence Hall of Science, which is a hands-on children’s museum that the university runs. There, they set up equipment for kids to talk to astronaut Brian Duffy aboard the STS-57 mission.

Thanks to SAREX, NASA figured out that amateur radio was actually a useful thing to have on board. Marchant said, “It was good emergency communications back up, and the crews enjoyed it, and it was a good stem outreach activity for them.”

When Marchant moved back to Virginia to help build autonomous aircraft for NASA Science purposes, he was invited to be part of the SAREX team.

Then, when the International Space Station became a reality, NASA decided that amateur radio should be a part of it [too]. These days the ISS has an internet phone for crew members to talk to loved ones, but in the early days, amateur radio was a much-appreciated resource for connecting to people on the ground.

No matter where they are from, no matter what the race, religion or political ideology, people come together every day to study our world, participate in science and solve problems. “That gives me hope for humanity”, says Bonnie.

Thank you to her for these excerpts from her commentary.

This is Dave Reece, amazed by the quality of some of the SSTV pictures recently downloaded from the ISS by the HAMSAT fraternity, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

A few earthquakes have shaken our start to the new year. The first was a magnitude 5.8 quake in Ethiopia on the 4th of January at a depth of 10km, an hour or so after midnight UTC, and affecting a local population of 11500 people.

A second earthquake, measuring 7.1 in magnitude, struck China on 7th January at 01h05 UTC, also at a depth of 10km, and threatening a population of 10750 people nearby.

And another M 4.7 earthquake struck Ethiopia on Friday the 10th, at 09h57 UTC, and a fourth on Saturday 11^th, at 00h19 UTC, an M 5.2, yet again at a depth of 10km, and threatening different groups of about 10000 people.

No reports of loss of life or severe injury have been received in the general media.

Meanwhile, the north eastern half of our country has been battered this week by thunderstorms, continuous rains, and even a tornado in Welkom on the 5th, which caused huge devastation and loss to businesses as well as private property. Damage to emergency service facilities crippled the town’s ability to provide immediate assistance, making the rescue and revival attempts after the disaster very challenging.

KwaZulu Natal was not spared, and disaster management teams were braced for severe weather, forecast from Monday to about Wednesday. Disruptive rainfall threatening low-water bridges and major travel routes during the end of the holiday period, were forecast, and accompanying accident statistics have been higher as a result. The rain had still not abated in parts of the province by Thursday, and disaster teams remained on alert.

By Friday, suddenly, a new Tropical Cyclone, named DIKELEDI, was announced, coming out of the central Indian Ocean, and bearing down on the northern tip of Madagascar, expected to arrive there today, Sunday the 12th, with wind speeds of up to 180km/h forecast. A RED alert level was posted, with the storm expected to cross Madagascar and then head for Mozambique, turning South-west, and travelling down the coastline in the general direction of the northern coast of KwaZulu Natal, hopefully just veering away from our border by the 15th. Let’s hope its impact on Madagascar, and then Mozambique is not as bad as forecast.

A visiting family’s near-drowning ordeal at Jongensfontein was miraculously averted thanks to the rapid response of local lifeguards, the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI), and two courageous surfers, reports capetownetc.com.

The life-threatening incident unfolded on the afternoon of Friday as a mother, father and their teenage daughter were swept out to sea by powerful rip currents at Sandstrand Beach.

At approximately 1:49pm, the NSRI Stilbaai duty crew received urgent reports of the drowning in progress. Eyewitnesses described the family of three struggling against the violent currents, rapidly being carried away from the shore. With the situation quickly escalating, every second counted.

In response, NSRI Stilbaai rescue swimmers immediately mobilised and made their way to the scene. Meanwhile, NSRI lifeguards stationed at the nearby swimming beach, 800 metres away at the caravan park, also rushed to assist. Upon arriving, the team encountered two surfers – Good Samaritans – who were already paddling toward the family, which was now approximately 800 metres off the shore.

With no time to spare, NSRI rescue swimmers and a lifeguard equipped with torpedo rescue buoys plunged into the surf. Alongside the surfers, they reached the family and found the mother unconscious but still breathing. Her condition was critical, and the rescuers acted swiftly to stabilise her.

The mother was carefully placed on one of the surfers’ boards, while the father and daughter clung to the second board. The group worked together to keep the family afloat as they awaited the arrival of the NSRI rescue craft.

After reaching the family, the NSRI rescue boat, Breede Rescuer, was launched from the Stilbaai rescue base, covering the 1-kilometre distance to reach the stranded group. The rescue boat successfully evacuated the family, as well as two NSRI rescue swimmers, and brought them on board to safety.

Meanwhile, the two surfers and the NSRI lifeguard returned to the beach, ensuring the family was well cared for until the rescue craft arrived.

During the journey back to the NSRI rescue base, the mother regained consciousness on board the vessel. Medical personnel immediately administered treatment for non-fatal drowning symptoms, and she was stabilised.

The family, who had travelled from Brits in Gauteng for a holiday in Stilbaai, were taken to local doctors for further evaluation and care. They are now recovering under the attentive care of medical professionals.

In sadder news capetownetc.com also remarks on the stark reminder the Cape Of Good Hope SPCA faced of the devastation fireworks can cause to animals. Their report of 3^rd January shows blood-spattered window blinds, wooden gates and other furnishings caused by terrified dogs frightened to death by the noises which they can hear, and which we can’t.

The SPCA fielded call after call on 1^st January early, regarding frightened, injured and displaced animals. The SPCA team worked tirelessly through the night and early hours, responding to distress calls. And by Friday the 3^rd, calls were still coming in, indicating the far-reaching impact fireworks have on animals. For the innocent animals, fireworks are not a celebratory display – they are a nightmare.

But of course, we humans are far too self-centred to think of the effect our actions have on other creatures, having little insight in to the nature and personalities of our pets, or wildlife in general.

I have to confess I get despondent when I think of how inconsiderate we can really be.

HAMNET Western Cape, and HAMNET Gauteng are preparing for cycle tours coming up.

The first is the Fast One Cycle race at the Meyerton Race Track, between the 25^th and 26^th January, and due to keep HAMNET Gauteng busy for at least 24 hours.

The second is the 99er cycle tour on the 8^th February, taking place between Durbanville and Malmesbury in the Western Cape. HAMNET provides rover duties and stationary-mobile observers at a variety of points to provide extra eyes to the organisers, of problems as they arise.

Volunteers for the 99er are still sought, so if any of you rabid communicators are available that Saturday morning and haven’t volunteered yet, please contact Michael ZS1MJT via the usual channels.

Then the third is the HAMNET Ride for Sight in Gauteng on the 16^th February, with organization and set-up taking place on the 15^th. All Gauteng members are heartily encouraged to offer their services for these two cycle tours in Division six.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, far too lazy to attempt to ride a bicycle without falling off, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.