Gosh, hurricane season this year is turning out to be a kind of gift that keeps of giving, in a negative way. After discussing Tropical Cyclones in the South China Sea and Hurricanes in the Caribbean and on the west coast of Mexico, we now see evidence of a devastating Category Four Hurricane, called HELENE, having struck Florida, Georgia and South Carolina since Friday.

Coming straight up from the southern Caribbean, it has also caused a lot of rain and wind in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, over Belize and most of Cuba. Florida’s flooding by this category four hurricane has wind speeds greater than 200km/h and has caused mandatory evacuations to be announced in multiple counties, where very heavy rainfall was forecast for this weekend. Thirty fatalities had been reported by Friday night, and more can be expected. Five and a half million people have been in its direct path and 2.2 million customers don’t have power across Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

The Hurricane Watch Net was activated at 10h00 Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday and its operations were closed on Friday at 11h00. During this time, members of the hurricane watch net collected and forwarded over 100 surface reports to the National Hurricane Centre. Frequencies used were 7.268MHz and 14.325MHz.

The west coast of Mexico has also been experiencing its own hurricane, called JOHN, which, as a Category Three Hurricane, is threatening about 150000 people with winds of up to 194km/h. It crossed the Pacific coastline of Mexico on Friday evening and has caused catastrophic flash flooding and mudslides in portions of Southern and Southwestern Mexico. , By the time it has dissipated, up to 20 inches (500mm) of rain may have fallen in some states of Mexico.

When Hurricane John initially made landfall it left 100,000 residents and businesses without power, uprooted trees and power poles while ripping off roofs. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 16km from the storm’s centre and tropical-storm-force winds extended outward up to 200km. By Friday night, 5 fatalities had been reported in Guerrero state.

Weather forecasters are predicting more very cold weather in KZN this coming week.  iol.co.za says that KwaZulu-Natal’s disaster management teams have been placed on standby amid reports of possible snow over parts of the province next week.

Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi, said early forecasts indicate the province will experience extremely cold temperatures today and on Monday and Tuesday of this week. This will potentially result in snowfall in some areas around the Drakensberg Mountains, and include parts of the Harry Gwala, uThukela, uMgungundlovu, and Amajuba Districts.

He said that while this forecast is preliminary, further updates are expected in due course. He urged residents to monitor weather forecasts through reliable sources. I hope the N3 isn’t closed off again, like two weekends ago.

A quick paragraph from a report issued by Yoshiki Enomoto, ICOM executive and board member, after the Hizbollah explosions, confirms that their V82 radios and batteries were last shipped in October 2014. He said there are at least as many counterfeit versions circulating today as were sold before that. He said further that, in all pictures released of damaged radios, they seemed to be missing a holographic seal which guarantees ICOM’s authentic product. He and his company were therefore 99.9% sure that their products were not involved in the middle-east explosions of the previous week.  I’m sure you’ll agree this is good news.

Continuing in this handheld vein, I’m sure you’ll also agree that you are not much good as an emergency communicator without a handheld radio, or Handie-Talkie, as they are usually described. In his blog of 22^nd September, Bob K0NR says that Motorola trademarked the name Handie-Talkie and used that nomenclature for many years with its line of portable radios. However, this trademark has expired, so now Handie-Talkie is a generic term.

Bob goes on: “But the HT-220 was not the first Handie-Talkie, so I started poking around to find out how this name originated. Back in World War II, the SCR-536 was a portable “hand-held” transceiver developed in 1940 by Galvin Manufacturing (later Motorola, Inc.)  I put “hand-held” in quotes because, by today’s standards, it was a Hand FULL. But most people consider the SCR-536 to be the first modern, self-contained HT transceiver. The Wikipedia article for the SCR-536 describes the radio quite well. The radio put out about 360 mW of RF power on 3.5 and 6.0 MHz (Oops, I mean 3500 to 6000 kilocycles) using Amplitude Modulation (AM). The circuitry relied on smallish vacuum tubes, creating quite a design challenge. Motorola has a page on its website that talks about the origins of the radio. IEEE Spectrum also published an excellent article: The SCR-536 Handie-Talkie Was the Modern Walkie-Talkie’s Finicky Ancestor. The January 2005 issue of QST has an interesting article by Gil McElroy, VE3PKD, ‘A Short History of the Handheld Transceiver’. It provides more history and insight into this fun topic.

“A few years later (1942), a backpack portable radio was introduced, called the SCR-300. I always assumed that the backpack-style radio would have come first and the more compact radio SCR-536 would be later. (Actually, there were previous backpack radios, such as the SCR-194). This new backpack-style radio was referred to as a Walkie-Talkie. According to the manual, the SCR-300 was “primarily intended as a walkie-talkie for foot combat troops”. I suppose the emphasis was on how you can walk and talk, with a radio on your back.

“The radio weighed a heavy 35 pounds, and used Frequency Modulation (FM) on 40 to 48 Megacycles. The SCR-194 that predated the SCR-300 might be considered the first walkie-talkie. However, the SCR-300 and the SCR-536 seem to get all of the glory, probably due to their impact on the war effort.

“Fast forward to today and we see that the HT and Handie-Talkie nomenclature is common in the amateur radio world. The term “walkie-talkie” has morphed to something quite different and is used generically to describe a handheld radio. This term covers a wide range of radios, from low-cost Family Radio Service (FRS) radios to higher-quality professional radios. This is quite different from the original Walkie-Talkie, a backpack radio weighing 35 pounds.”

I hope Bob K0NR will forgive me for borrowing parts of his blog, and leaving out some military aspects, which are not relevant to this report. Thank you, Bob!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, with at least three Handie-Talkies in his shack, only two hands to operate them with, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Central Europe has been consumed with news of heavy rainfall and flash flooding this week, from a storm named BORIS, particularly affecting Romania, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Deaths and displacements have been notified since last weekend.

Greg Mossop G0DUB has kept up a running daily news blog of reports coming in from IARU Region One Emcomm representatives from these countries. It would appear that Poland was severely affected, and Michal Brennek SP2J, has reported that the Prime Minister issued a state of natural disaster in southern parts of the country, allowing quicker response times and mobilized funds.

As part of the response, Krzysztof SP5E, President of the Polish National Society PZK reports that Polish Radio Amateurs responding to the flooding are likely to use VHF/UHF for the primary response but they are also noting that 3.760MHz, 7.110MHz, and 14.300MHz may also be used. All radio amateurs are asked to keep these Emergency Centre of Activity frequencies clear if needed for message handling. 

The effects of the flooding are also being felt along the river Danube with Slovakia and Hungary already seeing rising river levels. 

The rivers Danube, Elbe, Vistula and Oder all have catchment regions, and river flooding may be seen more widely across parts of Germany, Poland, Hungary and Romania over the coming days, so amateurs are asked please to listen before transmitting in the area on any of the Emergency Centre of Activity frequencies listed above and avoid causing interference to any response activities. 

Thanks to the IARU for those last few paragraphs of their communique.

As of Wednesday (the last day or reporting), GDACS set the death toll at 22 souls over central Europe, with many thousands of homes destroyed, and an even greater number of people displaced. Water levels in rivers in Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary were continuing to rise.

Thankfully, drier conditions did start to set in on Thursday the 19^th.

Meanwhile the South China Sea, Philippines, Taiwan and the southernmost tip of Japan have faced their third Tropical Cyclone in about 2 weeks. I mentioned storm YAGI 14 days ago, and storm BEBINCA last Sunday. In the course of this week, storm PULUSAN started moving northwest towards eastern China and on 18 September at 00h00 UTC, its centre was located approximately 500 km south-east of Ryukyu islands, southern Japan with maximum sustained winds of 102 km/h. PULASAN was forecast to cross the central Ryukyu islands on 19 September and to make landfall as a tropical storm.

And to add insult to injury, Tropical depression GENER crossed the northern Philippines on 16-17 September, and according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) possibly would strengthen into a tropical storm as it passed south of the coasts of Hainan, south-eastern China and eastern Vietnam on 19 September. Moderate to locally very heavy rainfall was expected over northern Philippines, Hainan Island and most of Vietnam. 

The Natal Witness, on its website, said on Thursday that Disaster management teams have been placed on high alert across KZN in anticipation of inclement weather conditions expected this weekend.

According to a weather advisory issued by the South African Weather Service (SAWS), a spring cut-off low will bring snow and very cold, wet, and windy conditions to the province this weekend.

These inclement weather conditions pose a potential risk to human life and livestock.

The MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Thulasizwe Buthelezi, has warned residents about the weather conditions, which could result in localised flooding of roads, walkways and low-lying bridges.

The weather conditions have caused road closures due to snow, particularly in areas around the Drakensberg. So the N3 between Estcourt and Harrismith was totally shut down yesterday morning by heavy snow. I doubt whether the road will be cleared for a couple of days.

Buthelezi said disaster management teams have been assigned to monitor areas prone to weather-related incidents.

Residents who rely on generators and braziers are urged to use caution when using these methods to keep warm.

This is of particular concern, because this weekend marks the start of the September vacation for all schools in the country, and therefore the N3 has the potential to be very busy over the weekend, as Gauteng holiday-makers stream perhaps to KZN’s coastline for some warmer weather and the start of spring. Travellers are indeed urged to exhibit caution, and not be in a hurry in their travels. As things stand, KZN is not accessible by the usual routes from Gauteng. Remember, a slow trip and safe arrival is far better than a rapid journey without an arrival at all.

The series of detonations of electronic pagers and 2-way radios in the middle-east this week gives amateur radio operators cause for concern. Pagers have mostly been phased out in community life, because they are a means of delivering one-way traffic only to the carrier of the pager, with no possibility of a reply. Their means of transmission is regarded as safer and not possible to be hacked, and was therefore preferred by their users in the middle-east.

However, our hobby and our use of two-way radio communication is affected by the media showing a variety of exploded two-way radios, apparently made by ICOM, one of the big three Japanese amateur radio manufacturers. The damaged radios shown in the pictures have usually been ICOM V82 2metre handhelds.

ICOM last made and shipped V82’s and their associated batteries in 2014, so anything that looks fairly new in the pictures is clearly some sort of clone. The problem is that ICOM’s reputation as a solid and dependable transceiver manufacturer is going to be tarnished by the sight of these damaged radios. Anybody with a trace of conspiracy obsession in him is going to condemn ICOM, and be scared off investing in any other ICOM product, on the grounds that the planting of explosives in these radios was done at an ICOM source, and what other ICOM products might also explode during use?

Happily, ICOM has been quick to distance itself from any involvement in this disastrous story, and hopefully the worldwide radio community, not just radio amateurs, will believe them as they plead no involvement in the plot.

In similar vein, the Taiwanese company whose pagers exploded is claiming no involvement, saying the trade mark for the pagers was licensed to a company in Hungary. However, damage has been done to both these companies, which is unfortunate. Of course, the political implications of all this is outside the scope of our report.

Finally, may I remind you that this weekend marks the Spring Equinox in the southern hemisphere, so the days are now longer than the nights, thank goodness, and we can hopefully start packing the heaters, extra duvets, and thick clothing away. It can’t happen too quickly, as far as I am concerned.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, using all my ICOM radios without concern, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Hot on the heels of last week’s Tropical Cyclone YAGI, comes BEBINCA, with a fairly similar trajectory, only slightly more east of YAGI’s trail, and therefore missing the Philippines, but still aimed squarely at the coast of China.

It was first reported on Monday, having arisen in the North West Pacific, close to the island of Guam, and aiming north-west towards China as mentioned. On its way, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the southernmost tip of Japan were to experience maximum wind speeds of 185km/h. About 1.2 million people were threatened in its path.

By Tuesday, China was included in the warning, and nearly 16 million people were threatened with winds of up to 120km/h. On Wednesday a RED alert was issued by GDACS, and average wind speeds for the entire path were estimated at 194km/h. The number of people at risk had risen to 25 million or more.

Fortunately, the storm abated a bit by Thursday, probably crossing the central Ryukyu islands of Japan today (Sunday), and headed for the eastern coast of Zhejiang Province in eastern China tomorrow (Monday). By Saturday, wind speeds had dropped to about 100km/h, and it was classified as a tropical storm. That is a huge relief for those countries, faced with the possibility of two major typhoons in 2 weeks!

The final statistics of storm YAGI, by the way, showed 152 deaths, 80 people missing, 872 injured souls, and 124000 people evacuated to safety, in Philippines, Vietnam and China.

In the Caribbean, Tropical Cyclone FRANCINE developed quite quickly midweek, and by Thursday had made landfall in Louisiana, south west of New Orleans as a category two storm. Luckily it quickly weakened to a category one storm, with wind speeds in the 80km/h range. It was moving northeast toward Mississippi at 20km/h.

A turn to the north northeast was expected on Friday, with some reduction in forward speed. The ARRL letter for Thursday the 12^th notes that Ham radio operators volunteering with the ARRL® Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES®) have successfully completed operations for Hurricane FRANCINE, now regarded as a tropical storm. “We had a huge positive showing of ARES team members checking in and doing the ‘thing.’ I sincerely appreciate everyone leaning into this activation,” said Robert Hayes, KC5IMN, Section Emergency Coordinator of the ARRL Mississippi Section.

At least 419,942 people were without power early Thursday morning. PowerOutage.us reported 392,440 people without power in Louisiana and 27,502 in Mississippi.

The Hurricane Watch Net secured operations but remains at HWN Alert Level 2 monitoring mode. During their 14-hour activation, Net Manager Bobby Graves said they collected and forwarded surface reports from south eastern Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the National Hurricane Centre by way of WX4NHC. A total of 58 reports were submitted to WX4NHC, the amateur radio station at the National Hurricane Centre, some of which were used in NHC Advisories and Tropical Cyclone Updates. Reports ranged from wind damage to buildings, tree and wire damage reports, coastal storm surge flooding, wind measurement, rain gauge and rain-related street flooding reports.

Thanks to the ARRL for those excerpts from their letter.

An enterprising fellow with call sign AA7FO has gone to the trouble of converting the entire book written by HG Wells called “War of the Worlds” into Morse code in 214 mp3 files. This is as practice for people wishing to increase their copy speed. The first 29 files are set at 20 words per minute, the next 30 at 22 WPM, and the final 154 files at 24 WPM. So this is for the serious code enthusiast, but still an interesting way of challenging one with fast Morse and interesting subject matter.

For those that don’t remember, Wikipaedia says that The War of the Worlds is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was written between 1895 and 1897, and serialised in Pearson’s Magazine in the UK and Cosmopolitan magazine in the US in 1897. The full novel was first published in hardcover in 1898 by William Heinemann. The War of the Worlds is one of the earliest stories to detail a conflict between humankind and an extra-terrestrial race. The novel is the first-person narrative of an unnamed protagonist in Surrey and his younger brother who escapes to Tillingham in Essex as London and southern England is invaded by Martians. It is one of the most commented-on works in the science fiction canon.

It is best remembered for the magnificent and dramatic way in which Orson Wells, who was no relation to the author, produced a CBS radio show in October 1938, which was interrupted by a series of “Breaking News” flashes, announcing that the world had been invaded by Martians. A large number of listeners were taken in by the broadcast, having missed the original announcement that the entire show was a work of fiction.

Poor old Orson Wells had his work cut out apologizing at a hastily called news conference the next morning, as the public outrage continued, but he gained the reputation of an innovative storyteller and trickster.

Anyway, you can go to www.aa7fo.com/war-of-the-worlds.html/ for the practice files.

While we are in space, I thought you ought to know that the average age of a GPS satellite is now 13 years, with half of them exceeding their designed lifespan.

Payloadspace.com says that the USA-132 satellite broke the record for the oldest GPS satellite in history, having completed 27+ years in operation. While the record is an indicator of the reliability and robust engineering of the GPS satellite, it also means that the service still relies on hardware built in the 1990s. 

The Global Positioning System has long been one of the most important and widely-used services in the world but the US navigational network is showing signs of aging, slipping into a pattern of maintaining the status quo rather than driving innovation. 

The history of GPS goes all the way back to the world’s first satellite, Sputnik. George Weiffenbach and William Guier of the John Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory found that they could track the satellite’s location by analysing its radio signal.

This discovery paved the way for the US’s first, but limited, satellite-based geo-positioning system, dubbed “Transit,” in the 1960s.

Ever-increasing Cold War tensions drove the military’s need to improve the timing and positioning services, leading to the development of a new and improved version, the Navigation System with Timing and Ranging (NAVSTAR). 

NAVSTAR is the GPS system we know today. There are currently 31 GPS satellites in orbit, and the threshold for adequate cover is regarded as 24.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, who has no idea where he is if he doesn’t use GPS satellites, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Since Monday the 2^nd, GDACS has been carrying warnings about a new Tropical Cyclone in the North West Pacific, with a name that will resonate well with radio amateurs.

Tropical Storm YAGI arose on the 1^st, over the northern islands of Philippines, and then started moving towards China. Later on the 2^nd, a RED alert level for Philippines and China was issued, with expected high wind speeds of 210km/h.

By Wednesday the Vietnamese border with China was included in the warning as well as Laos, and estimated maximum wind speeds of 241km/h were forecast.  Nearly 14 million people were in the path of 120km/h winds.

On Saturday the GDACS newsletter said that, following YAGI’s passage over northern and eastern Philippines in combination with the south-west monsoon, 16 people had died, 13 others had been injured and 17 were still missing. Moreover, almost 550,000 people had been affected and almost 48,000 displaced across eight regions of the country.

YAGI was expected to continue westward over the South China Sea on 4-6 September, further strengthening, and to make landfall between northern Hainan Island and south-eastern Guangdong province, south-eastern China on 6 September, with maximum sustained winds up to 240 km/h. It was expected yesterday to cross the coast of Northern Vietnam in the Hanoi region as well, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 185km/h.

In the same report Brian Jacobs ZS6YZ sent to me last week, he reported on an agreement that has been signed with the Brakpan Aero Club which manages the Brakpan Airport (FABB) on behalf of the City of Ekurhuleni. The agreement allows HAMNET Gauteng full access to the Airport facilities. This allows the HAMNET container with their cache of equipment to be moved to Brakpan Airfield. A space has been allocated for the container and Ekurhuleni Disaster Management has also requested that their logo be added to the HAMNET container.

HAMNET also has permission to use the extensive area on the airport for training. The first training event on 14 September will be a fox hunt with a twist, amongst the hangers, so that the members who have not yet been involved in a PLB or ELT recovery can get some practice in an environment where reflections of the signal can cause confusion while hunting for the device.

Very good news, that, Brian, and I’m glad the HAMNET container has been centralized to a place where it will always be accessible.

The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Centre (DRMC) says that volunteers play a critical role in disaster mitigation efforts.

DRMC has relied heavily on its crop of volunteers in the past year to amplify its response to fires, floods and other public safety risks in Cape Town. The metro has experienced a surge in severe weather conditions in the past two years, including damaging winds and record high rainfall, that has resulted in flooding and property damage, and accelerated the extent of both wildfires and structural fires.

This has resulted in an increased demand on the services of the Disaster Risk Management Centre, and its dedicated crop of volunteers, to help those in need.

DRMC has 419 registered volunteers, working in teams in various parts of the metropole. They are activated through the Disaster Operations Centre via their unit coordinators to assist officials in affected communities for the duration of an incident or event.

During the period April to June this year, volunteers spent 18 471 hours assisting DRMC officials – this equates to more than 769 days of voluntary service.

The appointment of volunteers is entrenched in the Disaster Management Volunteer Regulations Framework, which allows the City to establish volunteer units and by doing so, empower communities effectively to respond to disaster relief efforts.

Thanks to iol.co.za for this report.

HAMNET Western Cape has signed a memorandum of understanding with the DRMC, and has a dedicated radio station (ZS1DCC) at the Goodwood Headquarters, with UHF, VHF, APRS, HF, Winlink, VarAC, and Echolink, as well as Marine monitoring capability, and a 5 GHz microwave link directly with a similar station (ZS1DZ) at the Provincial Emergency Management Centre at Tygerberg Hospital, which manages provincial disasters and their communications. The 5 GHz link is independent of all other means of communications between ZS1DCC and ZS1DZ, and completely private.

Here’s something with applications in amateur radio. Phys.org reports that researchers at ETH Zurich have managed to make sound waves travel only in one direction. In the future, this method could also be used in technical applications with electromagnetic waves.

Water, light and sound waves usually propagate in the same way forward as in a backward direction. As a consequence, when we are speaking to someone standing some distance away from us, that person can hear us as well as we can hear them. Ten years ago, researchers succeeded in suppressing sound wave propagation in the backward direction; however, this also attenuated the waves traveling forwards.

A team of researchers at ETH Zurich led by Nicolas Noiray, professor for Combustion, Acoustics and Flow Physics, in collaboration with Romain Fleury at EPFL, has now developed a method for preventing sound waves from traveling backward without deteriorating their propagation in the forward direction.

In the future, this method, which has recently been published in Nature Communications, could also be applied to electromagnetic waves.

Among other things, Noiray studies how self-sustaining thermo-acoustic oscillations can arise from the interplay between sound waves and flames in the combustion chamber of an aircraft engine, which can lead to dangerous vibrations. In the worst case, these vibrations can destroy the engine.

Noiray had the idea to use harmless self-sustaining aero-acoustic oscillations in order to allow sound waves to pass only in one direction and without any losses through a so-called circulator. In his scheme, the unavoidable attenuation of the sound waves is compensated by the self-oscillations in the circulator synchronizing with the incoming waves, which allows them to gain energy from those oscillations.

The circulator itself was supposed to consist of a disk-shaped cavity through which swirling air is blown from one side through an opening in its centre. For a specific combination of blowing speed and intensity of the swirl, a whistling sound is thus created in the cavity.

“In contrast to ordinary whistles, in which sound is created by a standing wave in the cavity, in this new whistle it results from a spinning wave,” explains Tiemo Pedergnana, a former doctoral student in Noiray’s group and lead author of the study.

From the idea to the experiment, it took a while. First, Noiray and his co-workers investigated the fluid mechanics of the spinning wave whistle, and then added three acoustic waveguides to it, which are arranged in a triangular shape along the edge of the circulator.

Sound waves that are fed in through the first waveguide can leave the circulator through the second waveguide. However, a wave entering through the second waveguide cannot exit “backwards” through the first waveguide, but can do so through the third waveguide.

“This concept of loss-compensated non-reciprocal wave propagation is, in our view, an important result that can also be transferred to other systems,” says Noiray. He sees his sound wave circulator mainly as a powerful toy model for the general approach of wave manipulation using synchronized self-oscillations that can, for instance, be applied to metamaterials for electromagnetic waves.

In this way, microwaves in radar systems could be guided better, and so-called topological circuits could be realized, with which signals can be routed in future communications systems.

Hmm – wonder whether this technology could be used in a flaming argument with your Significant Other, in which neither of you can hear what the other is saying! It might defuse the situation very quickly.

To be honest, radio aficionados have been using circulators for a long time. I wonder why it took so long to apply the process to sound.

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

Good grief! September already! Time really does fly while you’re having fun playing radio..

Bad news from theguardian.com says that Japan’s strongest typhoon of the year has made landfall in the country’s south-west, bringing torrential rain and winds of up to 252 km/h, strong enough to destroy homes.

The meteorological agency said Tropical Cyclone SHANSHAN, referred to in Japan as Typhoon No 10, made landfall on the island of Kyushu at around 8am on Thursday the 29^th August. The power company said 254,610 houses were already without electricity.

The meteorological agency predicted 1,100mm of precipitation in southern Kyushu in the 48 hours to Friday morning, around half the annual average for the area, which comprises Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures.

Authorities issued a rare special typhoon warning for most parts of Kagoshima, a prefecture in southern Kyushu. Residents in at-risk areas have been urged to remain on high alert, with transport operators and airlines cancelling trains and flights.

Japan has issued special typhoon warnings only three times in the past. The first came in July 2014, when a strong typhoon brought record-breaking waves to the southern prefecture of Okinawa before moving north, killing three people in landslides in Nagano prefecture.

In October 2016, authorities issued a similar warning for Okinawa’s main island. The typhoon moved north over the sea west of the southernmost main island of Kyushu.

The most recent special typhoon warning came in September 2022 – the first time the warning had been issued outside Okinawa prefecture, according to public broadcaster NHK. 

The potential for major damage is high given SHANSHAN’s sluggish speed. The storm is moving northwards at just 15km/h, the meteorological agency said.

There have already been reports of deaths in landslides – a major hazard in mountainous areas – while tens of thousands of people have been advised to evacuate.

“Typhoon SHANSHAN is expected to approach southern Kyushu with extremely strong force through Thursday,” chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters earlier. “It is expected that violent winds, high waves and storm surges at levels that many people have never experienced before, may occur.”

The agency also issued its highest “special warning” for violent storms, waves and high tides in parts of the Kagoshima region, with authorities there advising 56,000 people to evacuate.

The warnings indicate the “possibility that a major disaster prompted by [the typhoon] is extremely high,” Satoshi Sugimoto, chief forecaster of the meteorological agency, told a news conference.

Thanks to theguardian.com for these excerpts from their article.

I have reports from two South African sources for you this week.

Brian Jacobs, ZS6YZ, Deputy National Director of HAMNET tells me that HAMNET Gauteng were invited by Ekurhuleni Disaster Management to attend the Weather and Climate Information Services Early Warning Systems for Southern Africa (WISER-EWSA) Co-Production and Testbed preparatory Co-design Workshops that were held in Katlehong from 13-16 August 2024. Brian ZS6YZ, Leon ZS6LMG and Johan ZS6DMX attended the workshops and were also requested to do two presentations.

Leon presented on the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP). The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. CAP allows a warning message to be consistently disseminated simultaneously over many warning systems to many applications, such as Google Public Alerts and Cell Broadcast. CAP increases warning effectiveness and simplifies the task of activating a warning for responsible officials.

Brian did a presentation on Amateur Radio, and HAMNET, and also gave the local community some information about what to do if an aircraft happened to crash in or near the community so that they are aware that the scene is effectively a crime scene. As a result, everything needs to be preserved as evidence for the accident investigators from the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA).

It was a very informative workshop and, while Brian and Leon have in the past been involved in SA Weather Service workshops, it again helped to strengthen relations with the Weather Service, and Ekurhuleni Disaster Management. Further, the opportunity to introduce Amateur Radio and HAMNET to the community also helps when HAMNET is requested to work in the community, while assisting Ekurhuleni Disaster Management with emergency communications.

Thank you Brian, for that update. More from him in next week’s bulletin.

Then Ian Bradley ZS1BR, has sent me a report on the All Tar Motor Rally, held at Killarney race track in Cape Town at the beginning of August. He says:

”Radio operators were greeted by an unusually chilly morning with some having to scrape frost off their vehicles before heading to the racetrack at Killarney! Control was established at the New Pits by 08:00 with a dual band magmount antenna stuck to the metal roof of the building giving us good comms across the track. Due to the proximity of all stages, we were able to run on VHF simplex for the duration of the rally. However, some QRM on our primary frequency forced us to move to our backup frequency partway through the day.

“As always, operators were placed at the start and end of each stage, as well as a couple of floating radios to fill in any gaps. Andre, ZS1ATX had the best seat in the house, being situated with the commentators in the tower.

“The first stage of the rally was underway by 09:10 with 41 competitors heading out at one-minute intervals. The field was split between regular rally cars and “challengers” which were a mix of track and road cars who would not normally be able to compete in regular rallies.

“If the sheer number of vehicles weren’t enough to keep operators’ hands full, a serious accident occurred during the second stage. Medics and recovery vehicles were quickly dispatched to the scene and the stage paused. A second incident occurred in the third stage, bringing it to a halt while the driver and navigator were carefully extracted and transported to hospital.

“All manner of breakdowns, from blown turbos to flat tyres, whittled down the field to 29 cars, with some skipping stages to undertake repairs. No further incidents hampered the day however, and the race was brought to an end just as the sun started to dip below the horizon.

“Special thanks to Roger ZR1AKK, Davy ZR1FR, Johan ZR1JL, Andre ZS1ATX, Jannie ZS1JFK, Johann ZS1JM, and of course to Ian himself, ZS1BR”

Ian encourages amateurs to volunteer their time and expertise, even if new to amateur radio or sports communication, to assist in making these events safer while also making some noise on the air! Thank you, Ian for your usual comprehensive report.

From a sunny and mild Western Cape, this is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Adding to the list of tropical storms making their presence felt in the Caribbean, or the northwest Pacific, there is now a red alert out for Tropical Storm SHANSHAN, with maximum wind speeds of 213km/h. The storm is off to the east of Japan, but the estimated population affected by category 1 storm winds of at least 120km/h in Japan, is 22.4 million.

The storm is travelling due north-west at the moment, about 1000km off the southernmost tip of Japan, but is forecast to turn north-east on Monday and then strike the northern part of the southern island of Japan on Tuesday at about 8pm our time. It is expected then to travel up the length of the south island as a category 3 or 4 cyclone. I would expect lots of damage and some casualties.

In a report to me, Michael ZS1MJT says that HAMNET Western Cape was asked to provide a reliable communication network for the Wildrunner Trail Series run to be held at Kleinmond on Sunday 18 August 2024.

The race start was at the day camping facility, close to the beach. A beautiful sunrise welcomed the crew and weather conditions were perfect for such an event.

Two HAMNET operatives (Michael ZS1MJT and Sybrand ZS1L) met at 07h00 and set up a base at the start. Once the base was ready to operate, Sybrand drove to a designated position on the course to relay messages. As the race progressed, Sybrand moved to other positions to relay messages to and from other aid or marshal stations deeper in the mountains.

The Wildrunner frequencies were used for most communications and a simplex HAM frequency for communications between Sybrand and Michael was activated.

The first runners set off at 08h00. By 13h30, the final sweep returned to the arena and operators were allowed to stand down.

The event concluded without incident and the organizers were extremely grateful for our proficient service and message conveyance.

Thanks, Michael, for news of another successful operation.

Our next activation will be for the Helderberg Challenge Run, to be held on September the first.

In an interesting historic look at the opinion of Rajiv Gandhi, VU2RG, Prime Minister of India in the 1980’s, and the prime minister responsible for India’s liberalization and global “tech savvy” reputation, the nationalheraldindia.com notes that “Rajiv Gandhi realised the potential of radio hams. He himself cultivated the hobby, and his vision was to open up communications to the people through amateur wireless stations set up through a national network in 1.6 million villages.

“Even before he became prime minister, he organised an exhibition in 1981 at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi on ‘Communication: Past, Present, Future’. His mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi visited the exhibition and was shown how to make contact over amateur radio with several ham stations set up in cyclone-prone areas of Andhra Pradesh.

“Amateur radio should be promoted as a hobby in national interest and to promote scientific temper among the youth. Communication and information technology would help in disaster mitigation, [Rajiv Gandhi] was convinced.

”Arya Ghosh, a life member of the National Institute of Amateur Radio, told the Hindu that on the last day of his life, Rajiv Gandhi made his last call on ham radio from the city of Visakhapatnam while on board an aircraft.”

He seems to have been a very enlightened technophile, bearing in mind that this was in the second half of the 1980’s.

From medicalxpress.com, I read that a team of neuroscientists, brain specialists and psychiatrists, led by a group at Cambridge University in the U.K, has found evidence suggesting that minor brain injuries that occur early in life may have health impacts later on.

In their paper published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the group describes how they analysed and compared MRI scans from hundreds of people participating in the U.K.’s Prevent Dementia study.

Prior research has suggested that some forms of dementia could be related to some types of brain injuries. In this new effort, the research team, hoping to learn more about the impact of concussions or other minor brain injuries on dementia, looked at MRI scans of 617 people between the ages of 40 to 59 who had volunteered to take part in the Prevent Dementia study and who had undergone at least three MRI scans. They also studied their medical histories, focusing most specifically on whether they had had brain injuries anytime during their life.

The research team noted that 36.1% of the volunteers reported having experienced at least one brain injury that was serious enough to have caused them to be unconscious for a short period of time—such injuries are classified as traumatic brain injuries (TBIs).

Looking at the MRI scans, the researchers found higher than normal instances of cerebral microbleeds (1 in 6 of them) and other symptoms of what they describe as evidence of small vessel disease of the brain. They also found that those patients with at least one TBI were more likely to smoke cigarettes, had more sleep problems, and were more likely to have gait issues and to suffer from depression. They also noted that the more TBIs a person had, the more such problems became apparent.

Another thing that stood out, the team notes, was that those people who had experienced a TBI when younger had a higher risk of memory problems than did patients with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure or diabetes, a possible clue about their likelihood of developing dementia.

The researchers conclude by suggesting that more work needs to be done to learn about the long-term impacts of TBIs, particularly regarding memory retention problems and possible associations with the development of dementia. They further suggest that their work hints at the possibility of unknown health consequences years after people suffer head injuries.

Now this is serious stuff, because the brain injuries they are referring to are minor concussions experienced by young soccer players heading the ball, or young rugby players that go off the field for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) or young skateboard riders who fall and are dazed, none of whom is actually rendered fully unconscious.

One simply cannot underestimate a head injury or the long-term implications of one.

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

On Monday of this week, GDACS started carrying news of Tropical Cyclone AMPIL, active in the North West Pacific, and threatening the west coast of Japan, with wind speeds of up to 185km/h.

By Thursday, a RED alert had been issued for Japan, as AMPIL strengthened, developing winds of 210km/h. Five million people were faced with winds of at least 120km/h. Tokyo itself was the most at risk, with the eye of the storm passing just east of Tokyo on Friday at about 12h00 UTC.

And Tropical Cyclone ERNESTO announced itself in the Caribbean on Tuesday, threatening the Dominican Republic, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, Dominica and Bermuda, and especially bringing heavy rainfall and strong winds to the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.

It was forecast to generate heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surge over the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The ARRL, in its Thursday newsletter, reported that “Ernesto had moved out of Puerto Rico. The island suffered flash flooding, storm damage, and widespread power outages on Wednesday as Ernesto moved past. Half of all residents were without power, with flooding and damage especially pronounced in the eastern part of the island. Angel Luis Santana Díaz, WP3GW, Public Information Coordinator for the ARRL Puerto Rico Section, reports that amateur radio operators there are on the KP4FRA repeater system reporting situations in different municipalities.

“Fred Kleber, K9VV / NNA2FK, Section Manager of the ARRL Virgin Islands Section, reports Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency (VIETMA) activated its emergency operations centres on Tuesday night. Power is out to all customers on all islands with lines down and trees blocking some roads. Kleber estimated that full power restoration may take 1 – 2 days. All U.S. Virgin Island (USVI) repeaters are operating except for one, and the British Virgin Islands BVI.73 repeater is on the air as well.”

Techspot.com is reporting this week that major efforts to explore the Moon’s surface and build permanent human outposts will require precise timing technology. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is proposing a new “lunar time” system designed to make life much easier for astronauts – whether on the Moon or elsewhere in space.

While traditional atomic clocks are pushing the boundaries of time measurement precision with science fiction-like technological breakthroughs, those organizing the future of space exploration are focused on a more practical, yet otherworldly, issue. Atomic clocks on the Moon tick faster than those on Earth, gaining an additional 56 microseconds every 24 Earth hours.

This well-known discrepancy could jeopardize efforts to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon, as precise time measurement is essential for surface navigation, network communication, and more. On Earth, GPS satellites have atomic clocks synchronized to a common time reference, allowing receivers to determine position and time by measuring the delay in signals from multiple satellites.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is now proposing a GPS-like system for the Moon, featuring a new master “Moon Time” that would serve as the timekeeping reference for the entire lunar surface. Instead of having clocks gradually fall out of sync with Earth’s time, the Moon would be synchronized to a single “time zone” adjusted for its reduced gravity, the agency explained.

As confirmed by Einstein’s theory of relativity, time is not a uniform phenomenon and is influenced by gravity. The Moon’s gravity is weaker than Earth’s, causing clocks to tick slightly faster. The plan conceived by NIST researchers includes a “highly precise” network of clocks placed at specific locations, both on the Moon’s surface and in orbit.

This lunar network would function as a GPS-like navigation system, providing precise measurements for landing attempts and vehicle-based surface exploration. Without this technology, astronauts working at a permanent lunar outpost could easily lose their way. According to NIST physicist Bijunath Patla, “the goal is to ensure that spacecraft can land within a few metres of their intended destination.”

The new navigation system is designed to support NASA’s efforts to return humans to the Moon. The Artemis program aims to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon while preparing for further exploration of Mars and beyond. According to Patla, the framework proposed by NIST could eventually enable exploration not just beyond the Moon, but even beyond the solar system.

I hope some or all of you are involved in the International Lightship and Lighthouse Weekend for the rest of today, either involved at a lighthouse with your club or favourite group, or trying to make contact with some of them. I think, though I am not sure, that more lighthouses are being activated in Division One than in any of our other coastal divisions, but there are usually about 500 lighthouses and lightships activated around the world, so hopefully, if propagation allows it, you will be able to make contact with some of them.

In the Western Cape, today also sees the running of the Kleinmond Trail Run, organized by Wildrunners, and part of their series of trail runs. HAMNET has been asked to assist, and we have two operators, one at base, and a 4×4 vehicle at a critical spot on the course, and using CalTopo mapping software to keep track of things. Michael, ZS1MJT will be at the base, and Sybrand, ZS1L will be up on the course. I hope to give you a report back next week.

Sciencenews.org reports that, for the second time, the World Health Organization has declared that Mpox, formerly called Monkeypox, is a global health emergency.

In 2022, global spread of the virus, which causes rashes, fevers, muscle aches and other symptoms, led to the first emergency declaration. That version of the virus, called Clade II, is still causing a small number of cases around the world, including in the United States.

Even as clade II cases decline globally, infections with Clade I Mpox have shot up in Congo. Nevertheless, the first Mpox emergency ended in 2023. The sometimes deadly Clade I virus has now spread to previously unaffected countries in Africa and reported cases have surged beyond levels seen in 2022 or 2023. Children have been particularly hard hit.

Following the committee’s advice, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on August 14 that the outbreak is now a public health emergency of international concern. “It’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives,” he said.

It will never be an epidemic or pandemic like Covid-19, but, in that it is a virus infection, treatment will be difficult, and spread will be easy.

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

In South Africa, we still have the disaster watch in progress over KwaZulu Natal, with extreme temperatures and very dry conditions. EWN news says that dangerous fires are expected across large parts of the province today (Sunday).

And the never-ending wet weather in the western parts continues. Three retention dams burst their banks in a chain-reaction type disaster, in the Swartland area of the Western Cape this week, and a fourth dam’s wall is looking vulnerable as I write this. The communities of Dassenberg, Chatsworth and Riverlands have been flooded, roads and other amenities washed away, and large numbers of animals washed away or drowned.

The dailymaverick.co.za reported yesterday that 14 people were hospitalized, 444 are receiving humanitarian support and 224 people are being housed at a local church and a community centre. The Riverlands town is without potable water, and the Swartland and Drakenstein Municipality will temporarily provide water to the community until water supply is restored. Electricity infrastructure to the area has also been destroyed.

And it goes without saying that the humanitarian relief organisation Gift of the Givers, which was called by the Swartland Municipality and local disaster management team in the early hours of Thursday morning to provide assistance in evacuating people and supplying aid, is still on the site and will remain there for the next week.

The SPCA from the Cape of Good Hope and the Swartland has been active in the area, desperately looking for missing farm and domestic animals. With all animal feed washed away, and grazing areas covered in sludge, there is an immediate need to supply food for the remaining animals once recovered. Donations are gratefully received by the SPCA in these areas.

Reporting on Tropical Cyclone DEBBY, a category one hurricane which swept across Florida before turning to cross the Carolinas, the ARRL newsletter of 8^th August says that the storm made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend area just after 11pm local time on 4^th August.

The following day, it was downgraded to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of about 120km/h. The national Hurricane Centre’s ham station WX4NHC was activated, as were the Hurricane Watch Net and the VoIP Hurricane Net, as Debby deprived 248000 homes and business customers of electricity.

GDACS says that, after DEBBY’s passage, media reported six fatalities, five across the Big Bend region (northern Florida) and one more in southern Georgia. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reported 294 people evacuated to 36 shelters and evacuation orders for 12 counties throughout Florida.

DEBBY was forecast to make its second landfall over the central coast of South Carolina (near to the area of the Charleston city) on 8 August very early in the morning (UTC), with maximum sustained winds up to 83 km/h and as a tropical storm. Very heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges were forecast over South and North Carolina, and the tropical storm warning issued by NOAA is still in force over most of this area.

Grace Chen, reporting from Malaysia in thestar.com, says that members of a local amateur ham radio society took part in a mass disaster communication simulation exercise to transmit messages across 30 hills and mountain peaks nationwide.

The event was organised by the Malaysian Amateur Radio Transmitters Society (Marts) that was set up in 1952.

Its president Mohd Aris Bernawi said the exercise was to establish the locations where two-way radio communication can be carried out in the event landlines, Internet and mobile phone communication has to be shut down due to large-scale disasters.

“The floods in Pahang and Selangor in 2014 and 2021, respectively, rendered landlines and other digital networks unusable due to the need to shut off electricity.

“Radio communication can also be useful when there are large-scale forest fires where electricity and communication cable lines are located,” said Aris.

Among peaks chosen for the exercise was the National Planetarium in Kuala Lumpur, using the call sign 9M2RPN.

Marts member Hamdan Abu, who coordinated the locations, chose the planetarium because it was located more than 150m above sea level.

“Height is not the only criterion. No buildings should interfere with transmissions,” he said.

Hamdan, who took three months to look at locations, said members had also spent another three weeks training for the final day of the simulation exercise.

Six Marts members set up a tent beside the planetarium entrance during the day-long exercise, using different frequency bands to simulate road closures, weather conditions and rescue efforts, which their counterparts stationed on other peaks, would then transmit and relay.

Siti Nusilah Hassan said that the act of relaying a message during the simulation drill required a certain level of precision to preserve clarity.

“We will state the number of words, and during transmission, either by voice or Morse code, we will read out even the punctuation marks.”

To ensure accuracy, the receiver of the message must confirm receiving the same number of words as stated, she added.

Siti Nusilah, a sales and marketing executive with a textile company, said she became a ham radio enthusiast in 2017 after reading a news article on how knowledge in two-way radio communication could become an asset during emergencies.

She was joined at the planetarium by army sergeant Taufiq Sanapi, safety executive Ahmad Husaini Marzuki, 4 school lab assistant Ramlah Mamat, and Mohd Albar Mohd Noor, an executive director of an event management company. (Certainly a varied set of backgrounds those volunteers came from)

Thanks to The Star for these excerpts from their report.

I note with excitement again, the Sunspot Number registered on Saturday morning, of 382, which, together with a Solar Flux Index of 306, is the highest I’ve ever known about. Unfortunately the numbers are never constant, and so an average figure for the week, as quoted by Hannes Coetzee in the HQ bulletin, is far more accurate, and likely to predict the propagation possibilities.

By the way, if you don’t already know of the website, consider having a look at www.solarham.com run by a Canadian ham, VE3EN, who puts together all the possible indices of solar weather on one page, with daily and sometimes hourly updates, as solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and geomagnetic storms change our communications patterns. There are also animations showing how CME’s affect the earth. Remember – a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s www.solarham.com.

Once again, from a very grey and drab and wet Western Cape, this is Dave Reece ZS1DFR reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Since the 30^th July, reports have been coming out of India regarding heavy monsoon rainfall which triggered a series of landslides in the Wayanad district of the Kerala state, in Southern India. According to SPHERE India, as of 30 July, 270 people had died, 378 were still missing, 214 had been injured and more than 8,500 people had been evacuated in 85 relief camps. The rainfall is ongoing, and so further infrastructure damage and loss of life can unfortunately be expected.

Interestingly, a variety of agencies in the media are claiming the landslides could have been avoided. The monsoon rains certainly couldn’t have been. Apparently 140mm of rain fell in a single day. According to a panel convened to study the disaster, a changing landscape, with the evolution of tourist resorts in the name of eco-tourism and [also] indiscriminate quarrying, has more than altered the topography and endangered safety. Such is the degradation that on the northern side of Wayanad, especially in Thirunelli and Mananthavady panchayats, the ground has cracked at many places and wide faults that trigger landslips have emerged. It is not surprising therefore that slices of hillside were easily shed to tumble into valley areas.

And the Global Disaster Alert Coordination System (or GDACS) noted a magnitude 6.8 earthquake that struck the east coast of Mindanao Island in the Philippines just after midnight our time on Saturday morning early. The quake was situated at a depth of 26km, and exposed a population of 230000 people to possible injury. At the time of compiling this report, I was unable to find news of casualties.

Here’s a clever application of modern usage of those ubiquitous drones we read so much about. Techxplore.com reports that an international team of infectious disease researchers with the World Mosquito Program, working with colleagues from WeRobotics, has developed a way to release large numbers of mosquitoes infected with a mosquito-killing bacteria into the wild much more efficiently than current methods.

In their paper published in the journal Science Robotics, the group describes the container that was designed to hold and carry the mosquitoes and then to release them slowly over a wide parcel of land.

Jacob Crawford, with Verily Life Sciences LLC, has published a Focus piece in the same journal issue outlining the requirements necessary for effective aerial release devices and pointing out the benefits that automation could provide.

Mosquitoes carry a variety of viruses such as those that cause dengue fever. Scientists and health officials have been working to find ways to reduce their population numbers in places that are vulnerable to such infections. One such approach has been finding bacteria that infect and disable or kill the types of mosquitoes that cause disease and then finding ways to infect the mosquitoes with the bacteria.

The most common approach is to breed large numbers of the mosquitoes, infect them and then manually release them into the wild. But such an approach, it has been found, is inefficient, difficult, and oftentimes dangerous. In this new effort, the research team has found a way to use drones to get the job done.

The work by the team involved designing a container that could hold multiple small loads of infected mosquitoes and then release them at desired intervals. It also had to be small and lightweight enough to be carried by a drone.

The result was a small white box capable of holding 160,000 mosquitoes, divided into multiple compartments with a release mechanism that could be used to release the mosquitoes held in a given compartment on-demand.

The drone can fly to a given spot, release approximately 150 infected mosquitoes and then move to another spot—over and over until all the mosquitoes have been released. The box also has a climate control feature and a means for sedating the mosquitoes until it is time for their release.

In field trials conducted in Fiji, the team found that the system worked well in uniform distribution compared to manual release. In a second field test, they found that use of the drone to distribute infected mosquitoes effectively spread the disease and greatly reduced mosquito numbers in the given area.

Personally Ithink this is fiendishly cunning of the researchers! Thanks to techxplore.com for that piece of news.

Members of the Rally support group in the Western Cape, which includes HAMNET members volunteered to assist with the All Tar Motor Rally held yesterday the 3^rd at Killarney Racetrack.

In beautiful blue-sky weather, 41 cars started the 7 stage rally, with at least 6 radio operators managing the JOC or the starts and finishes of the various stages. Johann Marais ZS1JM acted as Chief Radio Marshal for the race. I am reliably informed that several cars came off the racetrack in more pieces that they started in, but a good time seems to have been had by all the radio operators, and the comms for the race proceeded efficiently. Well done to you fellows!

Finally a report from spaceweather.com says that the monthly average sunspot number for July 2024 was 196.5, according to the Royal Observatory of Belgium’s Solar Influences Data Analysis Centre. Solar Cycle 25 wasn’t expected to be this strong. When it began in Dec. 2019, experts predicted it would be a weak cycle like its immediate predecessor Solar Cycle 24. If that forecast had panned out, Solar Cycle 25 would be one of the weakest solar cycles in a century.

Instead, Solar Cycle 25 has shot past Cycle 24 and may be on pace to rival some of the stronger cycles of the 20th century. Already in May 2024 we experienced a century-class geomagnetic storm with auroras sighted in the South Pacific, central America and southern Africa.

Is this Solar Max? The jury is still out. Sunspot numbers may continue to rise in the months ahead and, based on the behaviour of previous cycles, we can confidently expect high solar activity for at least 2 to 3 more years.

Here’s hoping!

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

The Tropical Cyclone on the lips of everybody in the region of the South China Sea is called GAEMI, and reports have been issued on a daily basis since Monday the 22^nd. It arose due east of the northern islands of the Philippines, and has been taking a slightly curly course north-westward, brushing past the Philippine island of Luzon, and then smacking the northeastern half of Taiwan directly on Thursday the 25^th. Winds of up to 220km/h have been experienced as GAEMI hits landmasses.

From there it was aiming for the Chinese mainland, due to arrive on Friday, and carrying on directly north-west over the inland territories before weakening. 24 million people were said to be in its direct line of attack, and, by Friday afternoon, 2 ships had sunk, one with a huge amount of industrial fuel oil on board and causing a major oil slick about 7 km long, just a few kilometres from the coast of Philippines and near Manila. Evacuations in Taiwan and neighbouring areas numbered about 25000, while 629000 people in the Philippines had been displaced by Friday. Heavy rain to very heavy rainfall and strong winds are still forecast across the whole of Taiwan, south-eastern China, southern Ryukyu Islands and north-western Philippines. Typhoon warnings are still in effect over Taiwan and south-eastern China. 

And focustaiwan.tw says that this year’s Han Kuang military exercises have been cut short as troops were mobilized to assist in disaster relief in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi, the Ministry of National Defence (MND) said on Thursday.

Multiple drills scheduled between noon on Thursday and Friday — when the five-day exercises were originally scheduled to conclude — have been cancelled, and table-top war games will be conducted instead, the MND said.

Troops previously assigned to participate in the drills will now assist local governments in disaster relief to ensure people and their properties remain safe, the MND added.

An article in thehindu.com, says that twenty amateur radio operators from various parts of Thrissur have expressed their willingness to join the rescue operation under way at the site of a landslip at Shirur in Karnataka.

In a letter to the authorities concerned, they offered to render technical and communication support in connection with ongoing rescue operations at the site, where a trucker from Kerala is missing among three others.

“We are a group of WPC (wireless planning and coordination) licensed operators, who have been associating with district disaster management authority in Thrissur. We have successfully operated during 2018 floods in Kerala and landslip rescue operations in Pettimudi. Since 2009, we have been providing communication support to district emergency operations centre, Thrissur, in coordinating various departments for smooth functioning of Thrissur pooram, the largest gathering in South India. We can operate under stressful situations with utmost precision and accuracy,” they pointed out.

They urged the State authorities to give them permission to assist the Karnataka government’s rescue team.

It is great to see the radio amateurs volunteering without being asked for help.

Further advances in Laser Communications are reported on in theverge.com, which says that NASA researchers have successfully tested laser communications in space by streaming 4K video footage originating from an airplane in the sky to the International Space Station and back.

The feat demonstrates that the space agency could provide live coverage of a Moon landing during the Artemis missions and bodes well for the development of optical communications that could connect humans to Mars and beyond. NASA normally uses radio waves to send data and talk between the earth and space but says that laser communications using infrared light can transmit data 10 to 100 times faster than radios.

Engineers fitted an airplane with a portable laser terminal, then flew it over Lake Erie and sent data back to the centre in Cleveland. The data was then transmitted through a terrestrial network to NASA’s New Mexico test facility, where scientists controlled the process of beaming data up to the agency’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) satellite 22,000 miles away. The LCRD then relayed it to the ILLUMA-T (Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) on the ISS.

All rather convoluted really, but I hope you get the gist. A moon landing in 4K video would be a huge improvement on the grainy TV pictures when Neil Armstrong jumped off the bottom rung of his ladder in 1969.

In another Hackaday article, Al Williams asks if shortwave is on life support.

 He says: “Between World War II and Y2K, shortwave listening was quite an education. With a simple receiver, you could listen to the world. Some of it, of course, was entertainment, and much of it was propaganda of one sort or another. But you could learn a lot. Kids with shortwave radios always did great in geography. Getting the news from a different perspective is often illuminating, too. Learning about other cultures and people in such a direct way is priceless. Getting a QSL card in the mail from a faraway land seemed very exciting back then.

“Today, the shortwave landscape is a mere shadow of itself. According to a Wikipedia page, there are 235 active shortwave broadcasters from a list of 414, so nearly half are defunct. Not only are there many “dead” shortwave outlets, but many of the ones that are left are either not aimed at the world market or serve a niche group of listeners.

“You can argue that with the Internet, you don’t need radio, and that’s probably correct in some ways but misses a few important points. Indeed, many broadcasters still exist as streaming stations or a mix of radio and streaming

“So, while a 14-year-old in 1975 might be hunched over a radio wearing headphones, straining to hear NHK World Radio, these days, he is likely surfing the popular social media site of the week. You could easily argue that content on YouTube, Instagram, and the like can come from all over the world, so what’s the problem?

“The problem is information overload. Faced with a shortwave radio, there were a limited number of options available. What’s more, only a small part of the band might be “open” at any given time. It isn’t like the radio could play games or — unless you were a ham — allow you to chat with your friends. So you found radio stations from Germany to South Africa, from China and Russia, to Canada and Mexico. You knew the capital of Albania. You learned a little Dutch from Radio Nederlands.

“Is there an answer? Probably not. Radio isn’t coming back, barring an apocalyptic event. Sure, you can listen to the BBC on your computer, but you probably won’t. You can even listen to a radio over the network, but that isn’t going to draw in people who aren’t already interested in radio, even if it really looks like a radio.”

What a pity!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR on another soggy Cape day, reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.