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 10th.
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 17th.
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.