Within a span of seven hours on Friday morning early, the Sun unleashed two powerful X-class solar flares, disrupting high-frequency radio communications across parts of the Pacific, Australia, and East Asia. The bursts, rated X2.4 and X2.5, coming from Active Region 4419 on the sun, are the strongest in over two months and signal heightened solar activity as the current cycle nears its peak
This rapid succession, just seven hours apart, is unusual and points to a highly unstable magnetic configuration. Such events occur when complex sunspot magnetic fields suddenly release stored energy, sending intense radiation across the solar system within minutes of eruption.
NOAA and space weather agencies are tracking the magnetically unstable region responsible for the flares. Clusters of strong flares often precede larger solar events, and if future eruptions are accompanied by coronal mass ejections aimed at Earth, they could trigger geomagnetic storms. Such storms have the potential to disrupt satellites, GPS, and power grids, prompting heightened preparedness among infrastructure operators.
Thanks to MSN.com for this summary.
Brian ZS6YZ, our National HAMNET Director tells me that he and Willem ZS6WIM attended a National Disaster Management Strategic Indaba at Emperors Palace, in Gauteng on Tuesday 14th April 2026.. The Indaba covered an update on the Review of the Disaster Management System and planned interventions to get Disaster Management back on track.
Here in South Africa our weather patterns are becoming more severe and with devastating impact on communities. Disaster management needs to step up their efforts to reduce the impact on the communities by helping them to be better prepared. One of the ways is to provide early warning of approaching severe weather.
At the meeting, one of our colleagues from the Gauteng Provincial Disaster Management Centre presented an update on the Early Warning System that is being planned, noting that there would be a meeting soon, to continue the quest to find a solution.
An early warning system work in two ways:
Firstly, the weather services needs to know that is happening on the ground. The weather forecasters have access to weather radar systems that can provide them with an understanding of where a storm is and how severe it may be. They also have knowledge from previous storms of what to expect. However, they do not know what is happening on the ground in real time. In other countries such as the US, there is a Skywarn System where radio amateurs are trained to be storm spotters and provide real time information from the ground on the effects of the storm that is being seen on the weather radar.
Secondly, there needs to be a way for the communities who may be severely affected to be warned so that they can take the necessary precautions prior to the storm approaching them.
There are various ways that this can be done, including using the cellular broadcast facilities that are built into the GSM systems to disseminate information. The Weather Services also have Impact Based Warnings WhatsApp groups where forecasters and Disaster practitioners can exchange information. But, what happens if the cellular systems are down? What will plan B or C be? Are there other technologies that can be deployed to assist with early warning systems?
The other challenge is that the Government has lost a tremendous amount of knowledge, expertise and skills over the years, and they now look to volunteer organisations to assist them in filling the gaps.
This situation provides opportunities for communications specialists from HAMNET who have a varied knowledge base and who understand the inherent weaknesses of communications systems, to be able to partner with disaster practitioners to explore solutions that do not depend on commercial infrastructure.
On Saturday afternoon 18 April 2026, a small group of HAMNET Gauteng members met at the equipment container at the Brakpan airfield to discuss the use of technology in emergency communications. Brian delivered the presentation “Using Technology to provide effective HAMNET emergency communications” that was first presented at the 2026 National Technical Symposium. A discussion then took place on the importance of not only focussing on amateur radio digital modes, but on all technologies that could be used to pass information in the event of an emergency or disaster, be it wireless, microwave link, or even satellite services like Starlink. It is important that the best available technology be used, backed up by layers of alternate solutions that could be deployed should the primary solution fail or not be available.
Thank you for this summary of the communications associated with weather and the way forward, Brian.
wbng.com reports that a historic radio tower in Binghamton was used to connect with others around the world yesterday to commemorate the birthday of one of the inventors of radio.
Happening on Saturday, April 25, members of the Binghamton Amateur Radio Association (BARA) talked to amateur radio operators around the world using the historic Marconi Tower at 45 Lewis St.
The event commemorates the birth of Guglielmo Marconi, one of the inventors of radio, and is held annually on the Saturday closest to his actual birthday.
BARA operated using the tower from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time, reaching out to stations worldwide that were operating at other historic sites related to Marconi’s life and career. This event has been happening in Broome County annually since 2017.
Binghamton’s Marconi Tower is the last of four towers, two built in Binghamton and two in Scranton, that were put up by Marconi in 1913 as part of a pioneering experiment that first demonstrated radio-communication with a fast-moving vehicle, specifically a train traveling between Scranton and Binghamton.
This is a final reminder now to you all to appoint a proxy for the Annual General Meeting taking place next week Saturday the 2nd May. Please note that the SARL website will be offline on Wednesday the 29th for scheduled maintenance, so, if you want to download that proxy form, do it today! Please send it back to the secretary by midnight on Wednesday. And note the SARL office will be closed all of the coming workdays this week, so you cannot direct enquiries to Admin before the AGM. Please be proactive.
This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, wishing the attendees a useful AGM and a pleasant banquet next Saturday, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.