Our weather and geology news starts with a magnitude 7.7 earthquake which struck Panama at 17h56 UTC on Friday evening. The epicenter was 10km from the town of Pitaloza Arriba. A tsunami warning was issued, but subsequently cancelled because the quake struck dry land rather than under the water. As of Saturday night no news of casualties had been received, but the quake was felt across the nation by around 4.5 million people, and lasted for a minute, with over 80 aftershocks measured the same day. Shipping through the canal was not affected by the quake.

The Panamanian quake was at least the fourth quake this year in Latin America surpassing 7.0 in magnitude, after devastating back-to-back earthquakes in Venezuela’s Guaira in June, and a powerful earthquake in western Colombia in August.

Tropical Cyclone Isaias developed in the Bay of Mexico, and moved North East in the direction of the Gulf coast of the US, crossing the coastline on the West coast of the Florida pan-handle on Friday/Saturday as a category 3 storm with winds of up to 180km/h. Large parts of Florida were evacuated in anticipation of the storm.

The ARRL reported on Friday that the Hurricane Watch Net was up and running on both 14.325 and 7.268 MHz due to propagation conditions. Hurricane Isaias had increased in strength to Category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 200 km/h, making it a major hurricane as it continued to head toward the Florida panhandle and Alabama coast. Landfall was expected overnight Friday night.

Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ from HAMNET National tells me that he assisted the Gauteng Scouts with their Kim Shield Challenge that took place in the Crocodile River Reserve to the west of Centurion in Gauteng on 11-13 September. As not many resources were needed, he participated on his own, ensuring that there was good communications amongst the more that 30 bases spread over the reserve that needed to be visited by the participating Scout Patrols.

He deployed and monitored a portable repeater with the antenna attached to the 6m mast attached to his vehicle. For security the repeater was deployed before 06h00 in the morning and taken down again after the last patrol had checked into the base camp. There were over 600 scouts and more than 130 adult helpers participating in the event, and he worked closely with Mark Pollock ZS6MJP who was responsible for the communications from the Scout’s side.

He also notes that HAMNET Gauteng and some members from the East Rand Club will be assisting the Scouts at Arrowe Park with the JOTA/JOTI event next weekend from 16-18 October. They are expecting more than 400 scouts to participate from Arrowe Park and there will be many other scout groups from all over Gauteng also participating in their own JOTA/JOTI events at their scout halls.

Apart from the usual radio activities allowing the scouts to make contacts over HF, VHF and DMR, HAMNET will also be monitoring the BACAR-14 launch and flight and will try to receive and decode some of the payloads as well as communicating via the transponders that will be flying with the balloon. The whole idea is to show the scouts some of the interesting activities that wait for them when they do their Amateur Radio Operator badge.

There will also be a special Fox Hunt event on Saturday evening where HAMNET will explain to the scouts the significance of fox hunting or radio direction finding and how we can locate emergency locator beacons using the basic techniques. The Scouts will then have the opportunity to hunt for both a VHF and a UHF beacon that will be hidden on the Arrowe Park camp grounds.

A whole SATOps display will also be operational, including ADB-S signal reception, weather satellite reception and SSTV reception.

HAMNET is also responsible for ensuring that all the Scouters and activity coordinators can communicate with each other throughout the weekend.

Thank you, Brian, for these items of news from your region. This is an appeal to other Regional Directors to consider sending news of their regions for inclusion in the bulletin, to show that Division 6 is not the only active HAMNET region.

Danie, ZS1OSS has drawn my attention to a South African map application, called LastBar. His website says that “LastBar is a map of where mobile phones have signal and where they do not, made by the phones of the people who use the App. When you are stuck with no bars, it gives you the distance and the direction to the nearest place where your phone will work, and to the nearest water and shelter. It needs no connection to do so.”

This is an interesting South African app that is intended specifically for those who venture into areas where there is no cellphone signal coverage. This app will point you in the direction where you will most quickly find a signal, depending on which network you use. That may be a nearby hill, but could be any location where signals were confirmed from. He remembers being in a wilderness retreat once for a work session, and the only place you could just get a signal, was at one of the tennis courts. This app would typically point you to such a location. An emergency call can be made from any phone network, so in that type of scenario, the app will navigate you to where any phone network is reachable.

But it is more than just finding a location with a signal. The map also shows water, shelters, huts and caves, clinics and hospitals, police, fuel and peaks, using OpenStreetMap. Tap one for its address and a number to call, where there is one.

The app works without any Internet. What your phone measures shows on your own map at once, with no internet needed. Readings wait on your phone and go up by themselves when a connection returns.

It is not an open source app, but the privacy policy seems to cover all the bases with just the essential information being collected, and anonymised. There is no account that needs to be registered and your name, phone’s IMEI, or SIM details are never sent either.

The free version will include ads (and we all know what that means, as there will then be basic ad tracking) so the better option is to go for the paid version which excludes any adverts. It is available for both Android and iOS.

Thank you Danie.

Written versions of this bulletin will be available after this transmission on the SARL website on the “About the SARL” menu > SARL HAMNET > scroll down to WEBSITE and click on HAMNET Emergency Communications. It is also available on two facebook pages, namely “HAMNET – SOUTH AFRICAN RADIO LEAGUE”, and “SARL Hamnet”.

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