Just when we thought the risk of tropical storms may be leaving us for another year, the Global Disaster Alert Coordination System (GDACS) has started warning Southern Africa of the pending arrival of Severe Tropical Storm CHIDO, in the Indian Ocean and to the East of Madagascar. Early warnings were issued on Tuesday the 10^th.

Maximum wind speeds of about 170 km/h were forecast, with Madagascar  to be first in line, coastal Mozambique next, then Zimbabwe, and the far northeast of
South Africa and Eswatini possibly also affected.

On Thursday the warnings were upped to maximum wind speeds of 240km.h, with a million and a half people directly exposed to winds of at least 120km/h, a RED ALERT had been issued by GDACS, with the Comoros islands and Mozambique especially targeted. CHIDO is expected to cross the Mozambique coastline today (Sunday), and possibly reach Eastern Zimbabwe on the 17^th.

England and Wales has just weathered Storm DARRAGH, which came out of nowhere, and robbed large parts of the British Isles of power. Writing in The Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff noted that power lines were down, central heating was absent, and all digital methods of receiving media, or sending messages were missing. Life, as she says, went analogue.

It took up to 48 hours to re-establish power in the early winter, no joke at all for the old, frail, or unprepared.

Apparently, Emma Pinchbeck, the chief executive of the independent Climate Change Committee, which advises government, warned that Britain is nowhere near ready for the chaos that shifting weather patterns could bring. Too much of their essential infrastructure wasn’t built to withstand the conditions seen last weekend, which implies more power outages and more disrupted travel. They’re behind on flood defences, and are still inexplicably building houses on flood plains despite the clue being very much in the name. They’re also unprepared for freak hot summers leaving city dwellers sweltering in overheated flats. The government’s most recent climate risk assessment talks ominously of cascading failures, where one bit of toppling infrastructure crashes into the next: a power cut affecting water treatment facilities knocking out fresh water supplies for days, say, as happened in East Sussex two years ago during Storm Eunice.

Gaby ends by saying “Though the capacity to stay warm, fed and vaguely aware of what’s happening in the outside world is never a bad thing in a crisis, dragging some ancient camping gear down from the loft isn’t really about being physically prepared. It’s more about mentally adjusting to the idea that the world is once again more precarious than it looks, and that even the most boring aspects of everyday life can’t simply be taken for granted. I just hope that in the parts of government that are meant to be listening to the likes of Emma Pinchbeck, the same penny has dropped.”

And if the British Isles is ill-prepared, what chances have we non-first-world countries got of managing similar disasters.

A nice story from hackaday.com tells us of a group of radio hams who modified a radio telescope in the Netherlands, and successfully detected signals from Voyager 1. Bryan Cockfield, writing in Hackaday this week says:

“At the time of its construction in the 1950s, the Dwingeloo Radio Observatory was the largest rotatable telescope in the world with a dish diameter of 25 meters. It was quickly overtaken in the rankings but was used by astronomers for decades until it slowly fell into disuse in the early 2000s. After a restoration project the telescope is now a national heritage site in the Netherlands where it is also available for use by radio amateurs. Recently this group was able to receive signals from Voyager 1.

“Famously, Voyager 1 is the furthest manmade object from Earth, having been launched on a trajectory out of the solar system in 1977. As a result of distance and age, the signals it sends out are incredibly faint. The team first had to mount a new antenna to the dish, which was not originally designed for signals in this frequency, which added to the challenge. They then needed to use orbital predictions of the spacecraft in order to target the telescope and also make the correct adjustments to the received signal given that there is significant Doppler shift now as well. But with that all out of the way, the team was successfully able to receive the Voyager 1 signal on this telescope.

“Only a few [radio] telescopes in the world have ever been able to accomplish this feat, making it all the more impressive. Normally Voyager 1 is received using the Deep Space Network, a fleet of much larger dishes stationed around the world and designed for those frequencies. But this team is used to taking on unique challenges. They also decoded the first ham radio station on the moon and made a radar image of the moon using LoRa.”

Thanks to Brian for the story, and congratulations to the team of enterprising hams!

I note with interest news in the international ham press, of stations set up to receive signals from children operating ham stations under supervision of radio amateurs, who pass them on to the North Pole where Santa Claus or Father Christmas has been very busy preparing for his mad Christmas Eve dash around the world. The receiving station doing the relaying to the North Pole discusses the wishes of the children for Christmas presents with them, and undertakes to see that Santa gets the messages.

Apparently this process has been repeated each year for the last 19 years already, and I’m wondering why we aren’t running a relay to Father Christmas’ North Pole headquarters here in South Africa too. It seems to me we need a station with a good 20 or 40 metre signal from somewhere central to the country, likely to be heard in all provinces during the day, and with a good booming voice that will be easily heard by youngsters not really used to SSB signals. The ability to go along with the children’s trains of thought, and willingness at least to relay the messages at a time when the bands are open to the North Pole, would also be an advantage. A schedule to talk to the children could be set up at a time when propagation is likely to be good.

The children of Hams, or the next-door neighbour’s children may be excited to talk on the radio to someone who can quickly get a message to Santa before Christmas, and may have an interest in matters technical instilled in them at an early age. And who knows, one or two of those reach-for-a-dream-type stories might unfold, which can be brought to fruition by the kindness of South African Radio Amateurs, long known for their willingness to help their fellow (junior) citizens. That good feeling one gets from making someone else’s dreams come true, with no thought of compensation to oneself, is just simply the best!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, hoping that perfect person will take up the challenge and be the Relaying Santa station, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

techcentral.co.za this week is reporting that South Africans love radio. The shift to digital has had disruptive effects on audiences in other media such as print and television, but radio remains resilient – even as it faces revenue pressures.

This is according to the third annual State of Broadcasting Industry Report released by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) this week. “The radio industry in South Africa demonstrated resilience amid ongoing industry headwinds,” said the report.

While increasing penetration of smartphones and digital devices has facilitated increased access to online radio platforms, a shift was particularly evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, when lockdowns led to a rise in radio listenership as people sought companionship and information.”

Traditional broadcast radio has come under pressure despite listenership figures remaining robust, though the vast majority of South Africans continue to tune in at rates that surpass the global average.

According to the NAB’s report, radio has been impacted by changes in consumer behaviour towards the adoption of internet-based, on-demand broadcast services. Despite this, relatable content and innovative methods for driving listenership engagement – like the incorporation of social media – along with the continued growth of community radio stations are keeping radio relevant and mainstream.

December 2023 data from the Broadcast Research Council shows South Africa’s 334 radio stations – made up of 41 commercial and public broadcasting services and 293 community stations – attract a combined weekly audience of 31.6 million people. 

The NAB said the majority of listeners still tune in via standalone radio receivers, with car radios being the second most popular access medium. Smart speakers and streaming apps showed the strongest growth between the third quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, despite being fifth and sixth behind cell-phone FM receivers and DSTV’s audio bouquets.

Thanks to techcentral for this review.

Meanwhile, mybroadband.co.za reports that South Africa’s network operators have said that battery theft and vandalism at their base stations have declined since 2023, but MTN and Vodacom have noted that the crimes still cost them a combined R550 million this year.

Several years of severe load-shedding had necessitated that South Africa’s mobile operators install increased tower backup capacity to reduce the power cuts’ impact on customer connectivity.

Alongside copper cables and other valuable materials used in telecoms infrastructure, backup power equipment became a prime target for opportunistic thieves and organised syndicates.

“Battery theft and vandalism at our base stations continue to be a huge challenge for the telco sector,” says Vodacom Group chief risk officer Johan van Graan.

“The consequences go beyond the costs of repairing and restoring infrastructure. They have a significant impact on communities that depend on connectivity as a vital lifeline.”

According to Vodacom, base station vandalism and battery theft can leave hundreds of thousands of people without a means to communicate, as many rely on cell-phone networks for this.

However, it can also affect businesses and emergencies where communication can be a matter of life or death.

The operator said that KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and Northern Gauteng accounted for 40% of all battery thefts.

MTN South Africa told MyBroadband that it also experienced high levels of theft and vandalism in KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State.

The network said it had experienced close to 500 incidents of theft and vandalism, which ultimately cost R450 million to replace stolen batteries and damaged base stations in 2024.

This is more than a tenfold increase from 2023’s costs, which cost the network R33 million.

It explained that these incidents included cable theft, battery theft, and the vandalism of battery safe houses. Battery safe houses are vault-like structures built around base station batteries.

“In addition, MTN South Africa is replacing copper cables with aluminium, which has a lower scrap value, and securing batteries with epoxy while improving security structures and bunkers to delay potential breaches,” MTN South Africa said.

On another electronic tack, militaryaerospace.com says that Electronic Warfare transmitters will use gallium nitride (GaN) technology in the ALQ-99, which is an airborne integrated Electronic Warfare jammer, to provide an improved universal exciter upgrade that solves obsolescence problems with application-specific integrated circuit prototypes.

The ALQ-99 receiver and antennas are mounted in a fin-tip pod on an aircraft, while jamming transmitters and exciter equipment are located in under-wing pods.

The system is designed to intercept, automatically process, and jam enemy RF signals from radio communications and radar. It can also detect, identify, and locate radio waves in a signals intelligence mode.

The ALQ-99’s low-band transmitter has replaced the [previous generation] ALQ-99’s tactical jamming system in Electronic Warfare bands 1, 2, and 3, ranging from 20 MHz to 1 GHz. Building transmitters with GaN technology will enable the transmitters to include band 4, which operates from 1 to 3 GHz, and to consolidate several transmitters into one transmitter.

And in a story from telegrafi.com, I read about photographer and aviation enthusiast Ian Simpson who has lived in the East Anglia region all his life and one of whose favourite things to do is photograph aircraft at Royal Air Force bases.

But on the morning of July 13, he knew something was wrong when he was watching planes take off at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, about 100 kilometres north-east of London.

The base is operated by the US Air Force and is home to the 48th Fighter Wing, the only US Air Force F-15 fighter wing in Europe.

“This plane took off and just before it got to us … a lot of flames and sparks started coming out of the back,” Simpson told the CNN-in

Simpson, who previously worked for Boeing designing air traffic control procedures, listened to radio communications between pilot Major Grant Thompson and the base to see if any action would be taken, but to his surprise no one else appeared to have noticed.

When he heard that the plane was set to refuel over the North Sea, Simpson realized that the pilot was unaware of potential problems with the plane, reports the Telegraph.

“They had no idea what was going on,” said the 56-year-old observer. “So at that point, I called the base – Googled the phone number.”

The panel operator connected him to the flight operations centre, which then contacted air traffic control and the pilot. After Thompson had his wingman confirm damage to the right engine of his F15-E Strike Eagle, the pilot returned safely to base.

I just love it when a plan comes together!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, for the A TEAM, reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Writing in downtoearth.org.in, Kiran Pandey says that, while internal displacement in Africa has tripled in 15 years amid a spate of conflict and violence, there’s a six-fold increase in the number of internally displaced people whose lives have been disrupted by disasters, according to a new report.

The report, released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) noted that the number of people living in internal displacement as a result of conflict and violence in Africa has increased from 10.2 million in 2009 to 32.5 million in 2023. 

However, in comparison, the displacements caused by disasters have risen more sharply, increasing nearly six-fold between 2009 and 2023. The number of times people were forced to flee disasters each year increased from 1.1 million displacements in 2009 to 6.3 million in 2023. 

This surge in 15 years is largely driven by climate-related events such as floods and droughts, highlighting the growing impact of environmental disasters on displacement patterns across the continent.

Flooding, which impacts every region of the continent, is responsible for over 75 per cent of these displacements, while droughts contribute to an additional 11 per cent. 

For example, 69 per cent of the disaster-displacements in eastern Africa were due to floods. 

Most of those have taken place during the Gu season between March and May, and the Deyr season between October and December.

In western Africa, floods accounted for 99 per cent of disaster-displacements. Most of such displacements occurred between June and September. Such trends revealed in the report call for an effective preparedness plan to deal with such events, during the rainy season. These include early warning, land use planning and water management. 

Climate change is making weather-related hazards more frequent and more intense, acknowledged the IDMC. 

This has also been evident from the climate attribution studies published by the World Weather Attribution in recent years. It is also amplifying other factors that make communities more vulnerable to disaster displacement, increasing the risk of future movements. 

Nigeria reported the highest number of displaced people, totalling 8.7 million, with nearly three-quarters affected by two significant floods in 2012 and 2022. These events accounted for over 70 per cent of all flood-related displacements in the country.

According to the report, two cyclones—IDAI and FREDDY—were the most significant disaster-related displacement events in Africa over the past 15 years, impacting communities in Southern Africa.

The displacement trends over the past 15 years highlight the urgent need for effective implementation of conventions and policies at the regional level. 

In 2009, the African Union adopted the Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa which is also known as the Kampala Convention. 

This was the first—and remains the only—legally binding regional instrument that addresses all causes and phases of displacement. It demonstrates the commitment of African nations to tackle the issue and set international standards for its management. 

Sobering thoughts indeed concerning our continent and climate change.

For those of you who may have heard of, and been wondering about the bugs in the encryption algorithms used to secure emergency radio communications, urgentcomm.com says that the algorithms will now soon be released to the public domain, with the aim of encouraging code review and bug hunting.

The news comes after multiple vulnerabilities were found in TETRA, short for Terrestrial Trunked Radio, which is a radio voice and data standard mainly used by emergency services, such as police, fire brigade, and military, as well as in some industrial environments. The bugs were found by Midnight Blue Labs earlier this year, and the research was presented at Black Hat USA, showcasing additional zero-day vulnerabilities that could allow anyone to spy on or manipulate transmissions.

This decision to go public is a complete 180-degree turn for standard-maintainer ETSI, which originally pushed back against any claims of vulnerabilities within TETRA when they were initially found, claiming that the work to enhance the standard was already underway.

Since then, a technical committee overseeing the TETRA standard met in October to decide on making the algorithms open to the public. Ultimately, the group came to a unanimous decision to make all of the TETRA Air Interface cryptographic algorithms open-source.

With a bit of luck, the clever fellows or girls will find the bugs, fix them, and thereafter ensure safe and intact emergency comms using TETRA!

Writing on his own blog, gadgeteer.co.za, Danie ZS1OSS refers to the FCC authorization to be given to a wireless cell carrier to connect directly with Starlink satellites, and says that satellite connectivity on smartphones can be an incredibly important safety feature, and both phone makers and carriers are working to expand its availability. Now, Starlink’s direct-to-cell service that will be used by T-Mobile has FCC approval.

Danie says further: “The big promise of direct-to-cell satellite service is that you will be able to connect to a satellite just like you currently connect to a cell tower, with your current smartphone, whenever you find yourself in a dead spot. It’s like putting a cell tower in space that you can access at all times.

“So, this is actually a huge event. Any ordinary cell-phone user, stuck in some rural area (or at sea) where these satellites have coverage, could establish communications as if there was a cell-phone tower in range.

“It will be very interesting to see how these pan out in terms of more congested areas, and how operating costs compare. I’m thinking too here of some of the extreme electricity load shedding that South Africa experienced, where cell towers had no grid power for up to 6 hours at a time. South African operators have also had very expensive backup batteries stolen on a regular basis from their terrestrial sites.

“When one factors all this in, how do a few satellite units compare? Even for rural communications, due to the reach of the towers, how many towers and interconnectivity infrastructures are required to cover a 200 square kilometre area vs by satellite?”  Good Question!

Thanks for the comments, Danie, and for permission to use the report.

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