The Global Disaster Alert Coordination System (GDACS) has issued a report this week, saying that extreme weather events occur regularly in the Southern Africa and Indian Ocean region. They are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. El Niño is expected to exacerbate the risk of drought and cyclones. These natural hazards result in economic and political challenges, crop pests and diseases, and conflicts. This undermines living conditions, food security, and the livelihoods of millions of people in the region. Almost 35 million people in the Southern African and Indian Ocean region are expected to experience, or are already experiencing, high levels of acute food insecurity in 2023-2024.  

In 2024, the EU made an initial allocation of EUR 33.5 million to support humanitarian actions. The most vulnerable populations in Mozambique, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe are the main recipients of emergency aid.

EU humanitarian funding in the Southern African and Indian Ocean region provides emergency relief responses such as food assistance, protection services, access to health care, access to drinkable water, sanitation and hygiene, logistics, anticipatory action and disaster preparedness. The EU also supports actions to ensure the continuation of education in humanitarian crises. EU humanitarian funding ensures safe learning spaces and provides adequate education programmes for children in areas affected by violence and displacement.

BBC.com says that amateur radio enthusiasts gathered on Wednesday to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Guglielmo Marconi.

Marconi was the famous inventor and Nobel Prize for Physics winner.

The event took place at the Marconi Museum on the Lizard Peninsula, where Marconi did a lot of his work.

In 1901 he achieved a significant milestone, the first ever transatlantic communication from Poldhu to Newfoundland in Canada.

Poldhu Amateur Radio Station was on air talking all around the world as part of the event.

James Woolford, from Poldhu Amateur Radio Club, said he hoped the event would bring a bit of perspective to the younger generation.

He said: “We’re always trying to bring the message especially to the younger generation about what Marconi has brought to their world.

“He was the first man who was talking about mobile phones in the 1920s and we take a lot of things for granted now which link back to Marconi.

“He was a very important character in history who probably touched the lives of more of us and our technology than anyone else.”

Ian Bradley, ZS1BR has sent us a report on a recent motor rally. He says:

“Amateur radio operators were asked to assist with communications at the Cape Swartland Rally which ran over the course of two days and comprised a total of 14 stages. Twenty-eight cars were registered to take part over the two days, including several national teams as this was the first leg of the 2024 National Rally Championship.

“Day one was split into two halves with the first few stages held in the Malmesbury area, after which we transitioned to Killarney Raceway for some fast-paced night racing. While the day was not marred by any serious incidents, our operators were quick to pick up on any vehicles stuck or broken down in the stages and ensure there were no safety concerns.

“Day two was somewhat more relaxed in comparison to the previous evening and took place on the farms surrounding Riebeek-Kasteel, with Control situated at Du Vlei Farm Stall & Restaurant (which will certainly get another visit when we don’t have a race to focus on!).  The first few stages weren’t incident free, however the operators at the start and end positions made easy work of them. Our only serious accident of the rally took place early on in the afternoon and the ambulance was quickly dispatched from the start of the stage. Both driver and navigator were taken to hospital as a precaution but were thankfully found to have no serious injuries.

“While our primary function at these events is to facilitate communication between the various officials and marshals, and to be on standby for emergency communications, we also assist the scorers by collecting and transmitting the stage times as each team finishes a stage.  This allows both the rally teams and the public to track overall positions in near real-time, as well as to exercise the radio operators’ communications skills and accuracy in data transfer.

“Special thanks to ZS1JM, ZS1ATX, ZR1JL, ZS1JFK, ZS1YT, ZS1WV and ZS1EEE for making it a great outing. We invite any operators, whether you have an interest in motorsport or not, to come and play radio out in the field.”

Thank you, Ian, for the report and for the role you played in the rally.

Phys.org says that a team of physicists and engineers at Vector Atomic, Inc., a maker of navigation and communications equipment, has developed a new kind of atomic clock that they claim is both ultra-precise and sturdy. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes the factors that went into building their new clock and how well it has worked during field tests aboard a ship in the Pacific Ocean.

Bonnie Marlow and Jonathan Hirschauer, both with the MITRE Corporation, have published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue, outlining the need for ultra-precise atomic clocks and the work done by the team at Vector Atomic.

As the tools used on board ships have grown more sophisticated, the technology behind them has become increasingly reliant on precise timing. Navigation uses radio systems, for example, that use GPS. With such systems, very small time inaccuracies when measuring signal propagation between satellites can result in positioning errors of hundreds of meters, which can matter a lot when military vessels are involved.

Ships currently rely on atomic clocks that are robust enough to be able to work while on a rolling vessel, but they are not nearly as accurate as the atomic clocks used in research labs. In this new effort, the team at Vector Atomic has developed a clock to help bridge the difference.

The clock is based on the use of oscillating iodine molecules and weighs just 26 kilograms, which is about the size of three shoeboxes—small enough for use on virtually any ship. The group claims that it is approximately 1,000 times more precise than the types of clocks currently used.

In developing the clock, the team has been working with New Zealand’s navy. They tested the clock aboard the HMNZS Aotearoa as it conducted normal shipping operations for three weeks in the Pacific Ocean. Data from the tests showed that the clock was nearly as accurate as it was when tested in the lab—it kept time to within 300 trillionths of a second over any given day.

The development team notes that they are continuing to work on the clock, hoping to make it small enough to carry aboard navigation satellites.

300 trillionths of a second? That’s probably accurate enough to get my boiled egg just right!

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