So much for a Hurricane-free period! Cyclone FENGSHEN is following the usual path across the northern tip of Philippines, where 7 fatalities were reported, and heading for Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. Originally a tropical depression, with wind speeds of about 90km/h, it was projected to strengthen to a Category One Cyclone as it made landfall, threatening 11.5 million people in its path on Friday.

And there is a RED Alert out for Tropical Cyclone MELISSA in the Atlantic, with possible maximum wind speeds of 250km/h and now bearing down on Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba and Bahamas in the Caribbean.

Very heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges are forecast over the whole of Jamaica, southern Haiti and the south-western Dominican Republic starting from 25^th October. NOAA has issued a hurricane watch for southern Haiti and the south-western Dominican Republic and a tropical storm watch over Jamaica.

By Thursday, 94000 people in the Dominican Republic had been affected by extreme weather, and damaged aqueducts had impacted 549000 users.

In this connection, the ARRL has announced that, should they have to activate their Hurricane Watch Net for MELISSA, they would like amateurs to keep away from 7.268MHz (which doesn’t affect us) and 14.325MHz. Please bear this in mind during the CQ WW SSB contest today. Thank you.

Worrying news from the dailyinvestor.com is that South Africa’s shortage of air-traffic controllers is “almost compromising service delivery” by the state-owned company that manages the nation’s airspace.

Air Traffic and Navigation Services “continues to struggle to fill key positions, particularly ATCs,” Chairman Zola Majavu said in its annual report for fiscal 2025. Locally trained controllers are sought after internationally, and “the outflow of experienced personnel has outpaced the capacity of our training pipeline,” he said.

ATNS — which manages 6.1% of the world’s airspace — said that international providers offer remuneration and other incentives that it isn’t able to match. The firm said 86 employees left the company in the year that ended March, with 50 of these being from the air-traffic services division.

“This signals a department-specific crisis beyond typical organizational turnover patterns,” it said. “It is both a challenge and a strategic priority requiring immediate attention and sustained intervention.”

The company has launched an accelerated recruitment drive for vital roles including air-traffic service personnel, flight procedure designers and engineers.

“This also involves encouraging previous ATNS employees to return to South Africa to bridge the current expertise gap within an 18-month to three-year time frame,” Majavu said.

I don’t mean it flippantly, but I wonder if radio operators of any kind would be able to fill an Air Traffic Controller’s spot, if push were to come to shove. Somehow I doubt it.

In the absence of other Communications news from South Africa or overseas, I usually turn to Science or Cosmology for interesting stuff. In universetoday.com, mention is made of principles of interferometry used in optical astronomy. Brian Koberlein writes:

“The wavelengths of radio light are so large that you can’t capture a high-resolution image with a single dish. To capture an image as sharp as, say, the Hubble telescope, you’d need a radio dish tens of kilometers across. So radio astronomers took a different approach. They used an array of dozens of antennas, each capturing their own signal. Since the antennas not only capture precise data but also the precise timing of that data, astronomers can use a process known as interferometry. Light from a distant radio object reaches each antenna at a slightly different time, and by correlating the arrival times, astronomers can treat the array as a virtual antenna disk the size of the entire array. From many, one, as the saying goes.

“Optical astronomy doesn’t need to bother with this sort of thing. The wavelengths of visible light are on the atomic scale rather than in millimeters to meters, so even a moderately sized telescope can capture great images. The primary mirror of the Hubble, for example, is only 2.4 meters in diameter. But that’s starting to change. Modern ground-based optical telescopes use multiple hexagonal mirrors rather than a single primary mirror, and even the James Webb Space Telescope has an array of seven mirrors so it wouldn’t be limited by the size of its launch rocket. The mirrors can be focused to a single detector, so we still don’t need to use interferometry. But what if we did anyway?

That’s the question of a new study. The authors propose a method known as Kernel Phase Interferometry (KPI), and while it’s not the same as radio interferometry, it has many of the same benefits.

“With regular interferometry, individual signals are correlated to create a single image. KPI, on the other hand, starts with a single image and creates a virtual array of individual signals through Fourier transformations. Once the virtual array is created, you can then use it to produce an image through correlation, just like we do with radio signals.

“Most of the time, this approach wouldn’t gain you anything. While radio interferometry can create high-resolution images, those images have artifacts due to the layout of the antennas. Using KPI on a high-resolution image would just create a different high-resolution image with artifacts. But one thing interferometry is particularly good at is isolating sources. As the authors show, using KPI on observations such as close binary star systems better distinguishes individual sources. This method would be particularly useful for observing Earth-sized planets closely orbiting Sun-like stars.

“What’s neat about this method is that you don’t need to make new observations. The observations we currently have from telescopes such as JWST can be analyzed through KPI to create direct images of exoplanets and close binary stars. From one observation, we can get many observations thanks to this new approach.”

Thanks to universetoday.com and Brian Koberlein.

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

Tropical Storm IMELDA is the next storm to be threatening the Caribbean Islands. It formed on 26^th September over the Atlantic Ocean, and has been moving North West towards the Bahamas, all the while strengthening. Wind speeds a week ago were below 100km/h but severe rainfall in Eastern Cuba and the Bahamas was being reported.

GDACS reported that IMELDA was expected to pass very close to northern Bermuda on 2 October very early in the morning (UTC), with maximum sustained winds up to 148 km/h (as a category 1 hurricane), threatening 64000 people.

Over the 24 hours thereafter, heavy rainfall was forecast over North Carolina (USA), and heavy rainfall was also forecast over Bermuda. NOAA issued a hurricane watch over Bermuda.

On top of three Cyclones in three days, Philippines suffered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake on 30^th September at 15h59 our time. The epicentre was amongst the many islands that make up central Philippines, at a depth of 10km, and 681000 people were exposed to severe shaking. A tsunami was not experienced.

As of 1^st October, GDACS says that 69 fatalities and more than 560 injured people have been recorded mainly in Bogo city in the north of Cebu province, and estimates that up to 124,000 people were exposed to severe shaking, and 536,000 to very strong shaking.

Wisnu YB0AZ, President of the IARU region 3 announced on Wednesday that “the Philippine Amateur Radio Association, Inc. (PARA) had elevated its HERO (Ham Emergency Radio Operations) Alert Status to Code RED following the magnitude 6.9 earthquake that struck Northern Cebu on 30 September 2025.

“All amateur radio operators are requested to keep the frequency 7.095 MHz clear and available strictly for priority and emergency traffic. We kindly ask that you disseminate this information to your members and ensure that they observe this restriction until further notice from PARA.

“Thank you for your cooperation in supporting emergency communications in our Region.”

Thanks to Greg G0DUB for disseminating the alert.

And on Wednesday, GDACS announced the next Tropical Cyclone, called MATMO, expected to cross Northern Philippines on Friday, with wind speeds of 140km/h, and arrive on the Northern Vietnamese coast today. Fourteen million people are within the cone of its 120km/h winds.

Not to be outdone, the first cyclone of the season is threatening the eastern shores of India as a category one storm with wind speeds of 120km/h or greater, threatening up to 19 million people in its projected path.

In Phys.org/news, I read that researchers have transformed food waste sugars into natural plastic films that could one day replace petroleum-based packaging, offering compostable alternatives to commonly used plastics for food and agricultural films like silage wrap.

With global plastic production exceeding 400 million metric tons annually, a Monash University study highlights the potential of a new type of biodegradable plastic by converting food waste sugars into biopolymers. The study is published in the journal Microbial Cell Factories.

By selecting different bacterial strains and blending their polymers, the researchers produced films that behave like conventional plastics and can be molded into other shapes or solids.

The study, led by Edward Attenborough and Dr. Leonie van ‘t Hag from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, provides a framework for designing bioplastics for temperature-sensitive packaging, medical films and other products, addressing the global challenge of single-use plastic waste.

The research teams fed two soil-dwelling bacteria—Cupriavidus necator and Pseudomonas putida—a carefully balanced “diet” of sugars with the right blend of salts, nutrients and trace elements.

Once the microbes fattened up, they began stockpiling natural plastic inside their cells. The scientists then “milked” these plastics out using solvents, cast them into ultrathin films about 20 microns thick and tested their stretchiness, strength and melting behavior.

“This research demonstrates how food waste can be transformed into sustainable, compostable ultrathin films with tunable properties. The versatility of PHAs means we can reimagine materials we rely on every day without the environmental cost of conventional plastics,” Mr. Attenborough said.

“By tailoring these natural plastics for different uses, we’re opening the door to sustainable alternatives in packaging, especially where they can be composted along with food or agricultural waste.”

By comparing the stiff plastic made by C. necator with the softer, more flexible version from P. putida, the study demonstrates how blending the two can tune film properties like crystallinity and melting point, while maintaining strength and flexibility.

This sounds very promising for the world of thin-film coverings that can decompose.

And medicalxpress.com reports brand new data surrounding diabetes treatment and control of alcohol use disorder. Ingrid Fadelli writes:

“The excessive and uncontrolled consumption of alcohol, which can culminate in the development of alcohol use disorder or alcoholism, is widespread in many countries worldwide. Individuals diagnosed with alcohol use disorder are often also experiencing other mental health conditions, such as depression or anxiety. Moreover, the excessive use of alcohol is known to increase the risk of developing liver disease and some other health-related problems.

“While there are several treatment programmes for those struggling with their alcohol consumption, available options are not always effective for all affected individuals. Identifying effective new treatments could thus be highly valuable, as it could help to treat a wider range of patients, potentially limiting the detrimental effects of alcohol on their mental and physical health.

“Some studies have gathered evidence suggesting that gut hormones, particularly glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP), could act on both people’s metabolism and their addictive tendencies. These hormones have so far been primarily used to treat obesity and diabetes, as they can help to control blood sugar levels, appetite and body weight.

”Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the U.S. recently performed a large-scale analysis of genetic data, aimed at further exploring the potential of these hormones as therapeutic tools to limit excessive drinking and improve liver health. Their findings, published in Molecular Psychiatry, suggest that GLP-1 and GIP-based drugs could in fact help to reduce people’s intake of alcohol, which could inform the future development of alternative treatments for alcohol use disorder.”

Thanks to Medicalxpress.com for this excerpt from their article.

You and I will recognize the expensive drug Ozempic, as the first example of a GLP-1 treatment for diabetes, which resulted in patients who were using it for their diabetes or weight loss, reporting that their craving for alcohol was significantly reduced.

So, if you’re overweight, diabetic and have alcohol use disorder, a GLP-1 substance is the treatment for you. Pity it is so expensive, but the price will come down.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, thankfully having none of these three attributes, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Tropical Cyclone REGASA in the South China Sea, has had a devastating effect on the northern islands of Philippines, and has moved on to pummel China.

GDACS writes that, in the Philippines, the passage of RAGASA and a smaller storm MITAG, behind it, combined with the Southwest monsoon, caused heavy rainfall, floods, and landslides, four fatalities, seven people missing, 11 injured, 46,628 displaced, and 692,707 affected by the flooding.

In Taiwan, RAGASA caused 14 fatalities and around 10,000 people to be evacuated. In China, its passage resulted in approximately 770,000 evacuated people in the Guangdong province and 60 injured and 727 evacuated people in Hong Kong.

And, on Friday, GDACS announced that a newly formed Tropical Cyclone BUALOI – named OPONG in the Philippines – was moving northwest toward central Philippines. On 25 September at 0.00 UTC, its centre was located 383 km east of Samar Island’s eastern coast, with maximum sustained winds of 102 km/h (and as a tropical storm).

BUALOI has a course almost exactly parallel to RAGASA, but slightly more southerly than RAGASA, so the Philippines has been struck by three tropical storms or cyclones in as many days.

BUALOI was expected to continue northwest and to make landfall over southern Luzon Island between 25 and 26 September. It will then cross central and northern Philippines – particularly southern Luzon and Mindoro – from 26 to 27 September, bringing heavy rain and strong winds. After that, it should continue north-west over the South China Sea and make landfall over north-eastern Viet Nam on 29-30 September.

Thank you to GDACS for all those reports.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Hurricane Gabrielle, which approached the Caribbean, and then veered up north east, along the coast of the US, before drifting off in an easterly direction, is now threatening Portugal. Carlos Nora CT1END, the emergency comms coordinator for Portugal, reports that their communications group will be on standby on 3.680MHz, 7.110MHz, 14.300MHz, and a variety of VHF simplex and repeater frequencies in the country from Saturday the 27^th, until the danger is passed. Please be mindful of the HF frequencies, and don’t call in, unless it is clear that you can help.

Danie ZS1OSS has sent me a report of an event in Cape Town this last Monday. He writes:

“Cape Town hosted a G20 outreach on climate resilience and coastal protection this last week. It was a pre-cursor to a main event expected later in October.

“The high-level gathering on 22 September 2025 was themed ‘Coastal Protection and Eco-Based Disaster Risk Reduction’. It was led by the National Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa, and the Deputy Mayor of Cape Town was also in attendance.

“The outreach aimed to demonstrate the urgent need for stronger coastal defences as rising seas, storm surges and erosion threaten cities worldwide. The event also featured exhibitions of local disaster risk reduction projects, volunteer programmes, and community-based resilience efforts.

“Participants included the City of Cape Town Disaster Management, various NGOs, private sector partners, the National Sea Rescue Institute, the South African Weather Service, the Langa Community Advice Services, and other emergency and community organizations.

“HAMNET was also present and had our emergency communications trailer there. The Minister was briefed by our HAMNET WC Director, Michael ZS1MJT around what HAMNET is, and what it has been doing locally and nationally for various coastal and air related call-outs. The Minister was invited inside the trailer where Danie ZS1OSS showed him the APRS radio-based tracking we have on a screen, and the various other pieces of radio equipment. Whilst the Minister then made a statement to the media outside our trailer, we fielded a number of additional questions from ministerial advisors and delegates, and also had a member of the local Fire Rescue Service express interest in obtaining his amateur radio licence.

“The event was a success from HAMNET’s perspective, and also goes to show that our smart trailer does draw a lot of attention, and it was well worth having it present.”

Thank you, Danie, for that nice report.

Universe.com reports that the satellite Psyche launched in 2023, with the aim of studying the 220-kilometer metal asteroid also named Psyche that, according to one hypothesis, may be a fragment of the core of a dead protoplanet. The spacecraft is scheduled to reach Psyche in 2029.

In addition to studying the asteroid, Psyche also has the function of a “tester.” NASA specialists installed an experimental optical communication system on board. Its main advantage over traditional radio communication is its 10 to 100 times higher data transfer rate. Lasers can transmit complex scientific information, as well as high-definition images and videos. This is especially important for the next stage of space exploration, when humans will travel to the Moon and Mars and will need to send large amounts of data back to Earth quickly.

The first experiment took place on December 11, 2023, when Psyche was 31 million kilometers from Earth. The spacecraft sent a 15-second video of a cat to Earth (which was preloaded before launch). The data transfer rate was 267 Mbit/s. This is a couple of orders of magnitude faster than when using radio communication.

JPL specialists repeated the experiment several times thereafter. As Psyche moved away from Earth, the data transfer rate gradually decreased (for example, when the spacecraft was 226 million km away, it was 25 Mbit/s), but it was still much faster than traditional radio communications. In addition, engineers tested another innovation in the form of duplicate data. The spacecraft successfully demonstrated that it can simultaneously use both radio and laser communication systems to communicate with Earth. The radio data was transmitted to NASA’s Deep Space Network, and the laser data was received by the Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory. The photons captured by it were then directed to a highly efficient detector array, where the information encoded in them was processed.

Almost two years after the start, JPL specialists conducted the 65th and final experiment. During the mission, Psyche once again broke the distance record by successfully sending a signal from a distance of 350 million km. This corresponds to the radius of the inner boundary of the asteroid belt.

According to scientists, the experiments successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the technology. Data encoded by lasers can be reliably transmitted, received, and decoded after passing hundreds of millions of kilometers. In total, Psyche transmitted 13.6 terabits of data to Earth over the entire period. At the same time, the data transfer rate turned out to be even higher than expected. All this means that the technology has great prospects, especially when space agencies face the challenge of transmitting large amounts of high-resolution images and data from the Moon and Mars.

All I can say is “Cor Blimey, ain’t science wunnerful?!”

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

The far eastern shores of Russia, in the Kamchatka region has suffered two earthquakes of about magnitude 7.6 this week, the first of 7.4 on Monday past, and the second of 7.8 on Thursday evening our time. There have been many aftershocks, but luckily the epicentres have been off-shore, and casualties not recorded. Tsunami warnings were originally issued, but subsequently withdrawn. A total of 44 aftershocks of 4.5 magnitude or greater, in exactly the same spot, were reported on in Friday’s GDACS bulletin alone.

Since the 18^th September, Philippines and China have been threatened by Tropical Cyclone RAGASA, with maximum wind speeds of 220km/h, which arose in the north western Pacific, and which has moved across the northern tip of Philippines, in the direction of the south eastern coast of China. Its passage over northern Luzon affected more than 63,000 people and displaced nearly 800 individuals across at least five regions, primarily in Luzon Island.

RAGASA is expected to strengthen as a tropical storm while continuing its north west trajectory and is forecast to make landfall along the southeastern coast of Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, on 19 September.

From 18–20 September, heavy to very heavy rainfall will occur in southeastern China, while moderate to locally heavy rainfall is expected across most of the Philippines.

And on 20^th September, the alert level for RAGASA was raised to RED, with maximum windspeeds of up to 220km/h expected, as it crossed the northern tip of Luzon Island on its way to China.

Additionally, a new tropical cyclone – named NANDO in the Philippines – formed over the central Philippine Sea, and is moving north-west, projected to cross the northern islands of the Philippines, Babuyan and Batanes on 23 September.

From Malaysia, we learn that Amateur radio operators in Sabah have activated the frequency of 7.110MHz as an emergency channel following widespread floods that cut off power and phone services.

Kelab Radio Amateur Utara Selatan Sabah (KRAUSS) President Janson Juwily said the move was to help channel critical information from affected areas where roads were blocked by landslides and communications disrupted.

“KRAUSS is coordinating information received from operators and passing on important or emergency updates to the relevant agencies,” he said.

He said 10 emergency stations manned by KRAUSS members are operating round the clock in Tuaran, Beaufort, Penampang and Kota Kinabalu, besides mobile stations.

In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Amateur Radio Emergency Committee confirmed 7.110 MHz has been designated as the official channel for flood-related communications in Beaufort, Papar and Penampang.

The committee urged amateur radio users to vacate the frequency for emergency use only, prioritizing urgent messages, relief coordination and vital updates.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) also issued a global notice, with Region 3 Secretary-General Ken Yamamoto calling for the frequency to be reserved strictly for emergency, rescue and relief communications.

Meanwhile, reports from Penampang said transmission towers had collapsed, causing major power disruptions, water supply cuts and loss of phone services.

Thank you to dailyexpress.com.my for these paragraphs.

The website gdc.govt.nz notes that a casual chat about how to connect communication blackspots around Tairāwhiti has led to an ingenious system that will work when all else fails.

It all started when Tairāwhiti went dark during Cyclone Gabrielle – all communications were cut off. Cell towers and data networks went offline and there was no Wi-Fi or phone coverage.

“There had to be a better way,” says Tairāwhiti Emergency Management (TEMO) Group Manager, Ben Green. It led him to a conversation with Liam Cottle, a local, self-taught software engineering and radio communications expert.

Before the cyclone, Tairāwhiti already had black spots, but the issue was magnified during an emergency.

“Communication infrastructure is prone to failing,” says Mr Green. “That’s a real-time, today issue. Liam and I had a discussion around how we could solve the problem of communities without communications.”

A proof of concept was produced using a mesh communication system, Meshtastic, as a test bed. After testing identified technical limitations a new system called MeshCore was developed. It is a network where each device connects directly with others without relying on a central hub or cell tower.

Mr Cottle also designed an app and web interface that enables the users to text others on the network which connects to the Emergency Coordination Centre. TEMO has also invested in building solar powered repeaters that will create a backbone of the regional network.

“We wanted to embed a low cost but resilient communication network across the region that was easily deployable,” says Mr Green.

“Liam has taken a problem statement to create a bespoke solution for which he has developed and built MeshCore. This system improves on existing open-sourced solutions and has been designed as a complete regionally connected system that can operate off-grid, to provide secure, text-based messaging.”

“The user interface turns it into a command-and-control network that is easy to use. It is a low bandwidth slow system that is ideal for emergency communications.” Ben says the potential for even more to come from the encrypted MeshCore system is exciting.

“StarLink was seen as the great hope, and it does well but recent events have shown that satellite systems can be affected and taken offline. For our regional emergency planning, we have at least six back up modes of communication and MeshCore is now one of those.”

There has been a revolving door of members of parliament visiting the TEMO Emergency Co-ordination Centre in Lytton West, and Mr Green says he loves to show them the initiatives being rolled out in one of the nation’s most disaster-hit areas.

“This is real bang for buck for the taxpayer dollar,” he says. “MeshCore provides a capability that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars.”

Mr Cottle works alongside other like-minded engineers in Australia, the United Kingdom and Europe.

“There are lots playing with this technology all over the world, but not the way we are doing it here,” he says.

Thanks to ngt.govt.nz for the article.

It appears we are doing the same sort of thing here in South Africa, with meshtastic nodes which connect directly to each other, without use of a central hub or cell tower, but our encoding is different from MeshCore. And meshtastic, being licenceless, is used and promoted by all, not only radio hams.

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

In a follow-up to the petition to the FCC to refuse the use of amateur frequencies between 430 and 440MHz by a space-based internet service called AST SpaceMobile, the FCC has granted the service limited use of the 430–440 MHz amateur radio band. The license grants use of amateur radio spectrum for emergency purposes only.

The IARU relays that the volume of comments filed by amateur radio organizations and operators contributed to the limited grant by the FCC Space Bureau. The IARU continues to maintain that AST SpaceMobile has failed to show a legitimate need to utilize amateur radio spectrum.

Hopefully, there will be recourse to appeal this allocation in the future, if interference to ham activity becomes more and more intrusive.

This is a quick warning of a moderate tropical storm BLOSSOM, which has arisen north east of the tip of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. It is not threatening any landmass yet, and has wind speeds of about 75km/h, so is of no great concern at present. GDACS will continue to follow it, and report daily on its position.

The ARRL letter of 11^th September says that Amateur radio volunteers serving in the ARRL Amateur Radio Emergency Service and the National Weather Service SKYWARN program were active over the weekend. They were serving their communities in New England as tornado-warned storms moved across New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Five EF1 tornadoes struck the central Massachusetts communities of Paxton, Holden, Berlin and Stow.

A squall line of severe thunderstorms that would eventually have embedded tornadoes in central Massachusetts swept across the region. SKYWARN nets were activated on repeaters across the area. Reports came in rapidly of downed trees and wires, as well as hail up to 20mm in diameter in western Massachusetts, with radio amateurs sharing critical damage reports from this area. In addition, reports of damage were received in all of the tornado path areas in near real time and were shared with the National Weather Service, Boston / Norton Weather Forecast Office, WX1BOX, amateur radio team, directly via repeaters, using various applications, email, or social media that the amateur radio team utilizes.

“It had been a below normal 2025 severe weather season with only one large-scale severe weather event [in July] across Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts,” said Rob Macedo, KD1CY, ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section Emergency Coordinator and SKYWARN Coordinator. “That all changed on September 6th.”

Southern New England averages 2 tornadoes per year. The 6 states of New England average 8 tornadoes per year and there had been none in 2025 until Saturday the 6th, when 2/3 of the average yearly total occurred. This outbreak also put southern New England above average for tornadoes in the 2025 season.

All active SKYWARN nets were secured around 6:30 PM local time on Saturday.  Thanks to the ARRL for that news.

BBC.com/news reports that a mural is to be created to celebrate a radio communications station in Warwickshire dating back to the 1920s. The Rugby radio station was used for global communications in both peacetime and during the war.

It was used to broadcast time signals and linked the Royal Navy across the British Empire. The site is now being redeveloped and the developers have brought in an artist to create a mosaic made up of thousands of photos from the local community.

The radio station opened in 1926 and by the 1950s it was the biggest such station with nearly sixty masts, but it closed in the early 2000s and a school now stands on part of the site.

The artist, Allan Levy, said his mural would show “what Rugby radio was really about in its heyday when it was transmitting to the rest of the world and we were at the cutting edge of technology”. Mr Levy is still searching for more photos from the local community and aims to have the mural complete in time for the radio station’s 100th anniversary next year.

Thanks to the BBC for that report.

Reporting in theguardian.com/news, Kate Marvel says “Once upon a time, the world was powered by whale. Oil made from whale blubber burns cleanly and well, though it smells strongly of fish. It was, for a while, the perfect fuel. To meet the growing demand, whales were hunted almost to extinction.

“And then we discovered that oil could come from the ground. Lamps once lit by rendered blubber were swiftly changed over to run on what Americans call kerosene and the British call paraffin. Later, those lamps were changed to run on electricity, and instead of burning oil in the lamps themselves, we began to burn it in power plants miles away.

“This is where we find ourselves today. When a fossil fuel is combusted, it releases energy, which boils water, which turns to steam, which drives a turbine, which generates electricity. This is an almost comically inefficient process, requiring immense amounts of material: more than 8 billion tons of coal and 4 trillion cubic metres of fossil gas every year. And given the basic chemistry of combustion, it’s unavoidable that burning all this stuff leads to an immense buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Worse, fossil gas itself is made of methane – shorter lived in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but more than 80 times more potent while it lasts. Around a quarter of annual greenhouse gas emissions come from using fossil fuels to generate electricity.

“To have a hope of limiting warming, this has to change. The transition to clean energy will be difficult, but not impossible. Some of it is already happening. Renewable energy technologies have become good, reliable and inexpensive. Solar and wind, as well as the batteries needed to compensate for their intermittency, are getting cheaper at an astonishing rate. The price of onshore wind power plummeted 70% in the last decade, while solar costs fell by almost 90%. As a result, renewables are already being deployed at rates forecasters never imagined. If you had told me, even five years ago, how quickly the energy transition would be proceeding, I would not have believed you. It’s more than I ever dared to hope for. Finally, things are beginning to move. But they need to move faster. We know they can. They have before.”

Thank you to the theguardian.com for these first paragraphs from their commentary.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR very grateful that I don’t have to boil up some whale blubber to extract oil to light a lamp to be able to see what I’m typing, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Afghanistan experienced a magnitude 6 earthquake in its eastern border area with Pakistan, on Sunday the 31^st August at 21h17 CAT. The epicentre of the quake was a mere 6km below the surface, in a seismically active area because of ongoing friction between the Eurasian and the Indian tectonic plates.

The earthquake struck just before midnight local time on Sunday in a mountainous region near the city of Jalalabad, along the eastern border with Pakistan. It was of a relatively low 6.0 magnitude. But its epicentre was shallow at 8km underground, resulting in strong shaking on the surface and a series of aftershocks.

By Friday, GDACS was reporting a death toll at 2205, with injuries to 3604 people and the destruction of 6782 houses. People in the surrounding areas affected by the earthquake number about 497000, of whom 263000 are children.

Most of the dead and injured were sleeping indoors at the time of the earthquake, and were crushed by collapsing buildings. Because of the remoteness of the affected areas, and also blockage of road networks from landslides caused by the earthquake, the exact death toll may take a long time to find out.

Rural communities in Afghanistan can’t afford sturdy and manufactured building materials. Because of this they build homes with locally available natural materials such as earth, stone and raw lumber.

Such buildings do not follow engineered designs, building codes or formal professional standards that prevent easy damage by earthquakes in wealthier countries.

A typical form of construction in Afghan rural areas is walls made of mud bricks or stone masonry. This is known as “monolithic” construction.

Such construction is unable to resist the strong side-to-side shaking caused by an earthquake. As a result, buildings easily tumble and crush people. Reports of collapsed rubble where there were once buildings are emerging widely from Afghanistan, as was also the case in previous earthquakes.

More than one aftershock has been recorded in the area, the last, of magnitude 5.6 being measured on 4^th September at 18h56 CAT.

Next door, Pakistan is experiencing the heaviest monsoon flooding in 40 years. GDACS says that the flooding is due to unprecedented water releases from the Sutlej, Chenab, and Ravi rivers. This is affecting more than 2.4 million people and displacing more than 1 million people.

As of 6^th September, 884 fatalities and 1,182 injuries had been reported, while the UN reported 1.8 million evacuations and the creation of over 700 relief camps sheltering 12,500 people.

Meanwhile Portugal is mourning a devastating crash of a funicular train in Lisbon, called the Elevador da Gloria, which lost control as the carriage was coming down a steep hillside, derailed and crashed into a building.

Funiculars consist of two carriages on each end of a very strong cable. As one carriage comes down the hill on its end of the cable, the other carriage goes up the hill. In this way, a train coach can ascend or descend a steep slope in a controlled manner.

It seems, though not proven, that the cable snapped and the descending coach’s brakes were unable to slow the 20 ton carriage down or stop it. 16 people of many nationalities were killed and at least 20 injured

The company that operates the Elevador da Gloria has said regular inspections — including daily checks — had been carried out as required. It is therefore unlikely that negligence was at work. Portugal has declared 3 days of national mourning after the accident.

The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management held its annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station Exercise, in conjunction with ESKOM this last Thursday, the 4^th September. HAMNET has a MOU with DRM and was represented at the exercise by Danie ZS1OSS, who sent me this report. He says:

“The Annual Koeberg Nuclear Power Station exercise was held by City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management on Thursday 4 September 2025 in conjunction with Eskom and many other national, provincial and local agencies. This is a mandatory exercise that the City Disaster Management and Eskom must conduct to test the readiness of the various departments and agencies that must respond if there were to be a real nuclear disaster. The exercise is also important to identify shortcomings that must be improved on, as well as for the various departments and agencies to practice their own skills and how to operate together with other agencies.

“HAMNET‘s role is one of emergency communications. HAMNET is present to monitor developments, as it is essential to have a situational awareness if deployment is required. If communication dead spots are encountered, or if communications completely fail at any location, a HAMNET member would be deployed to that location to ensure communications can be maintained with the decision makers in the Strategic Room. For this exercise, HAMNET deployed Danie ZS1OSS, assisted by Jannie ZS1JFK and Shawn ZS1LED.

“The exercise started off with a situation being simulated at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, which escalated to the point that an activation SMS was sent out at 09:30 for all agencies to deploy to their various posts. Such a deployment is all pre-planned and consists of some agencies deploying to one of the Mass Care Centre (MCC) locations, others to traffic road blocks, the mobilization of two passenger bus services for evacuation, and others to their pre-allocated seats in the Strat Room at Goodwood Disaster Risk Management Centre. HAMNET took the opportunity to test their simplex radio communications between the Strat Room and the Auditorium in the building, and the Meshtastic radios were also tested, with one being situated at the border of the Koeberg Nature Reserve. A quick debrief was done when things got quieter nearer the end of the exercise, and it was interesting to note that over repeated exercises there are newer faces asking new questions, as well as more experienced members identifying deeper issues that may arise. This is the whole point of holding exercises and drills, after all! The all clear was given at 13:40 and the exercise ended.”

Thank you, Danie. I believe there may be a follow up report in a future edition of RadioZS.

This is a very disappointed Dave Reece ZS1DFR, packing my green and gold jersey away until next week, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Phys.org is reporting this week that an international team of astrophysicists and planetary scientists has discovered a possible link between magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence. In their study published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group used data from two sources to compare magnetospheric activity and ionospheric turbulence occurring at nearly the same time.

As you know, the ionosphere comprises the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere—it spans from approximately 48 km to 965 km above sea level, holding ions formed from solar radiation, making it electrically charged. The magnetosphere is an area of space surrounding Earth—it has charged particles that are impacted by Earth’s magnetic field. It exists courtesy of the planet’s internal dynamo, and it extends to approximately 65,000 km from the surface, though the distance varies greatly depending on a variety of factors.

Scientists have long known that turbulence in the ionosphere can cause problems with GPS signals, radio communications and even parts of the internet. Researchers have been looking to understand better why it happens, to figure out a way to predict when it will occur, and how strongly. In this new effort, the research team has taken a step toward solving the latter problems.

The team suspected that activity in the magnetosphere might be responsible for at least some of the turbulence that occurs in the ionosphere. To investigate, they used two sources of observational data: one on activity in the ionosphere (from the Japanese spacecraft Arase) and the other on the magnetosphere (from the ground-based ICEBEAR station in Canada).

By comparing data from both over the period January 2020 to June 2023, they were able to see if activity happening in the magnetosphere was followed soon thereafter by turbulence in the ionosphere and found one such incidence.

Data from Arase showed a burst of activity on May 12, 2021, in the magnetosphere. Seconds later, data from ICEBEAR showed turbulence occurring in the ionosphere. The data also showed the activity for both occurred over roughly the same patch of Earth and that the shape and timing of the signals matched to what the team describes as “a high degree of precision.”

The researchers acknowledge that more work is required before a definitive association can be made between events in the magnetosphere and turbulence in the ionosphere, but they suggest their work is a strong step in proving it to be the case.

Popularmechanics.com has announced this week that a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023. Their announcement was made in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it’s only produced by living organisms.

“It is a shock to the system,” Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. “We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal.”

It may sound surprising that the scientists were “trying to get rid of the signal,” but that’s exactly how detections like this work. Pretty much all of the exoplanets we’ve ever seen are simply too far away to just look at. Instead, to gather more information about what may lie on their surfaces, scientists observe the chemical makeups of their atmospheres.

This is done by capturing starlight that filters through those gaseous layers as a planet completes a transit in front of its host star. Different wavelengths of that starlight are blocked by different atmospheric chemicals, so by reading which wavelengths get filtered out as they pass through an exoplanets atmosphere, we can tell what that atmosphere is made of.

Astronomers have become very good at making these detections, but it’s still a difficult process. And the first step, every time, is to try to filter out noise—errant spikes in a spectrum that can disguise true detections—and false positives that might be caused by, say, a nearly invisible gas cloud in between us and an exoplanet.

So, when the astronomers spotted dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere of K2-18b, they did everything to try to rule out the possibility that it was a ‘whoops.’

But even after carefully exhausting all the avenues they could think of over the course of two full observation sessions with JWST (which is rare in astronomy, considering how many teams want time with the coolest telescope we have) they found it impossible to attribute the detection to anything other than atmospheric composition. And if you rule out the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth.

May I end this shortened bulletin with a huge appeal to all you radio communicators who read this bulletin or listen to it, to consider sending me some news of your area? You will have noticed that, for months now, I’ve had virtually nothing to say about the South African Comms scene, or about events, activities or rescues that we have been involved in. Does that really mean nothing happens in South Africa? Please consider sending me as little as a paragraph from your area, and I will incorporate it in the bulletin. Thank you.

And now, bearing in mind which Sunday today is, may I warn you not to join the ranks of those in the statistics, to whom the following epitaph applies: “Death by Chocolate”!

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, hastily wiping the chocolate smears off all the keys on his keyboard, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Nasa.gov reports that NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia celebrated its 60th anniversary on March 19 while also breaking ground on a new radio antenna. The pair of achievements are major milestones for the network, which communicates with spacecraft all over the solar system using giant dish antennas located at three complexes around the globe.

Canberra’s newest addition, Deep Space Station 33, will be a 34-meter-wide multi-frequency beam-waveguide antenna. Buried mostly below ground, a massive concrete pedestal will house cutting-edge electronics and receivers in a climate-controlled room and provide a sturdy base for the reflector dish, which will rotate during operations on a steel platform called an alidade.

When it goes online in 2029, the new Canberra dish will be the last of six parabolic dishes constructed under NASA’s Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Program, which is helping to support current and future spacecraft and the increased volume of data they provide. The network’s Madrid facility christened a new dish in 2022, and the Goldstone, California, facility is putting the finishing touches on a new antenna.

The Deep Space Network was officially founded on Dec. 24, 1963, when NASA’s early ground stations, including Goldstone, were connected to the new network control center at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Called the Space Flight Operations Facility, that building remains the centre through which data from the three global complexes flows.

The Madrid facility joined in 1964, and Canberra went online in 1965, going on to help support hundreds of missions, including the Apollo Moon landings.

By being spaced equidistant from one another around the globe, the complexes can provide continual coverage of spacecraft, no matter where they are in the solar system as Earth rotates. There is an exception, however: Due to Canberra’s location in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the only one that can send commands to, and receive data from, Voyager 2 as it heads south almost 21 billion kilometers through interstellar space. More than 24 billion kilometers away, Voyager 1 sends its data down to the Madrid and Goldstone complexes, but it, too, can only receive commands via Canberra.

“These new technologies have the potential to boost the science and exploration returns of missions traveling throughout the solar system,” said Amy Smith, deputy project manager for the Deep Space Network at JPL, which manages the network. “Laser and radio communications could even be combined to build hybrid antennas, or dishes that can communicate using both radio and optical frequencies at the same time. That could be a game changer for NASA.”

In Phys.org this week, I learned that Saccharin, the artificial sweetener used in diet foods like yogurts and sugar-free drinks, can kill multidrug-resistant bacteria—including one of the world’s most dangerous pathogens.

“Antibiotic resistance is one of the major threats to modern medicine,” said Professor Ronan McCarthy, who led the research at Brunel University of London’s Antimicrobial Innovations Center.

“Procedures such as tooth extractions and cancer treatment often rely on antibiotics to prevent or treat infection. But doctors are increasingly facing cases where the drugs no longer work.”

In 2019, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) killed 1.27 million people globally, with resistant infections contributing to nearly 5 million deaths.

Drug-resistant bacteria such as Acinetobacter baumannii, which causes life-threatening infections in people with a weakened immune system, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, linked to chronic lung infections and sepsis, are on the World Health Organization’s list of top-priority pathogens.

“In exciting work led by our team, we’ve identified a novel antimicrobial— saccharin,” Prof McCarthy said. “Saccharin breaks the walls of bacterial pathogens, causing them to distort and eventually burst, killing the bacteria. Crucially, this damage lets antibiotics slip inside, overwhelming their resistance systems.”

Saccharin has been part of the human diet for longer than 100 years. While it has been extensively tested for safety in people, little was known about its effect on bacteria—until now with a study appearing in EMBO Molecular Medicine.

The international team found that saccharin both stops bacterial growth and disrupts DNA replication, and stops the bacteria from forming biofilms—sticky, protective layers that help them survive antibiotics.

This is very promising news in the world of life-threatening infections.

And techxplore.com is reporting on a new method of predicting where people lost in the wilderness may be found, based on simulations of their decision-making processes, which could help mountain rescue teams save lives in the future.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a sophisticated computer system to model the actions of simulated people lost in outdoor environments.

The system, which is based on data drawn from accounts of how people in the real world behaved after finding themselves lost outdoors, creates a “heat map” showing the probability of where missing people may be found in any landscape.

The Glasgow team hopes it could lead to the development of a robust new method to help search and rescue teams choose where to focus their recovery efforts, which could incorporate sensor-equipped drones to help scour the landscape.

In a new Early Access paper published in the journal IEEE Access, the team outlines how they used data from historical studies of how lost people behaved in real-world situations, to create simulated “agents” who act based on different psychological states.

The algorithms that underpin the agents are guided by distinct sub-models, each with a different goal in mind. They all seek to find their way back to civilization by heading for either water, trees, buildings, paths or roads. The simulated agents make decisions about where to go based on factors including their current location and whether they could see their preferred terrain.

To help inform the agents’ behavior, the team’s system also took into account data gathered on missing peoples’ likelihood of being found in different types of terrain, and the distances people typically traveled from their reported last known location.

The research is part of ongoing efforts at the University of Glasgow to use cutting-edge technology to bolster the work of search and rescue teams. Related research has used a data-driven approach to explore ways of making AI-controlled drones better at searching the countryside for missing people.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, struggling to find his car keys in his house, let alone find lost souls in a strange environment, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

Well, the death toll after Myanmar’s double earthquake last week stood at 3145 on Friday, but there are another 4000 or so souls unaccounted for, so this is not the end of the tragedy. Assistance has been slow in coming to Myanmar, and the rubble of many buildings has not yet been removed, so sadly the numbers are going to rise. Rescue teams continue to struggle to clear debris as the chances of finding any more injured but living victims decrease.

Riaan Greeff, ZS4PR, Regional Director for HAMNET in the Free States reports that The 30^th SASOL Marathon scheduled and planned for 29^th March 2025 was a huge success for both the Sasolburg Athletics club and the Sasolburg Radio club.

The Sasolburg Athletics club called for the radio support from the Sasolburg radio club.  The marathon event is a large event and leads to qualifying times towards the Comrades every year. And as happens every year, the seriousness of the call escalates to HAMNET being approached.

23 radio amateurs from three provinces went to Sasolburg on 28 and 29 March.

Gideon ZS4GJA was leading the logistical planning of this event, but due to a severe infection after a recent knee operation, had to withdraw medically and be booked in to a local hospital for an emergency procedure to address his leg.

Riaan, ZS4PR, HAMNET Director Free State, then took the reins to ensure the volunteers are catered for and the arrangement Gideon had in place could be adopted. 

Brian, ZS6YZ, the newly appointed National Director HAMNET, an active HAMNET leader for several years, also attended the race.  Family works together, and his daughter Anja ZS6SJC was also present. Like father like daughter…

The Gauteng and Limpopo members drove though on Friday afternoon and by Saturday morning 4am everyone was in attendance, ready to be deployed to strategic points all over Sasolburg.

Leon, ZS6LMG and Linda ZS6LML took responsibility to lead the athletes, and after the event, remarked that lead athletes are way more taxing than leading cyclists.  It was a first for this experienced couple. 

Ruan ZS6RFC and his wife Ilze-Mari ZS6IMF took the lead for the 10km group. 

The route was manned by several HAMNET members, focused on reporting the condition of athletes, summoning ambulance services, and giving feedback to the JOC, manned by Riaan ZS4PR, Jaco ZS6JCO and Wim ZS6WIM.  Inter-provincial people sitting in the same JOC does allow for excellent experiential learning.

Talking of learning and training, Pro-Ethnos, a fire brigade first responder training team lead by Jurie ZS6RIT from the West Rand was also called to use this event as a training opportunity.  Riaan instructed and allowed the young ladies Maryka ZS6MVS, Duemarie Swart and Nia Nel with their K9, Noala, to practice their communication skills by placing them in one of the more challenging areas in Sasolburg.  They had to relay their messages to a central person, who then relayed the messages to the JOC.  It was the first time they tried to work radio this way, and fared well, with many lessons learned.

By 13:00 the event was over, and the last athletes safe and accounted for.

Dolf Binneman, Chairman of the Sasol Marathon and Sasolburg Athletics club complemented the HAMNET team of radio amateurs for their professional and effective support they provided.  All his water-points and safety staff gave him positive feedback where HAMNET was involved to assist.

The Sasolburg and Vaal area have excellent radio repeater infrastructure in place.  UHF DMR and 2m FM repeaters were used as the main communication channels, and APRS via the digital packet repeater network provided real time tracking of the ham activities, the ambulances and the back marker vehicles.

Riaan thanks his team for a job well done, and I thank Riaan for the fine report.

Writing on camras.nl, a group of radio amateurs report that, on 22 March 2025, they used the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope successfully to bounce a radio signal off the surface of Venus. At the time, Venus was in its closest approach to Earth at about 42.000.000 km. Such a conjunction happens when Venus is between the Sun and the Earth, and happens approximately every 580 days.

‘Earth-Venus-Earth’ (EVE) bounces were extensively performed in the 60’s and 70’s to make radar images of Venus. More recently, in 2012, the Arecibo telescope in combination with the Green Bank telescope made a very detailed map of Venus. The first and, until now, only amateur EVE was achieved in 2009 by AMSAT-DL from the 20m Radio telescope at the Bochum Observatory (Sternwarte Bochum).

The Dwingeloo telescope was commanded to transmit a 278 second long tone at a frequency of 1299.5 MHz. Since the light travel time to Venus and back was about 280 seconds, they could receive the reflection of their own signal afterwards. They repeated this cycle four times.

While Dwingeloo received its own echo, the Stockert radio telescope, operated by Astropeiler Stockert e.V., also successfully received Venus’ echo of Dwingeloo’s signals. The receptions in Stockert were stronger than those received in Dwingeloo, since the Stockert receiving chain is a bit more sensitive.

The data analysis consists of correcting the received data for both the expected Doppler shift and the rate of change of this Doppler shift due to the rotations and relative motions of Earth and Venus. After channelizing the received signal in 1 Hz frequency bins, the echo of the transmitted signal should fall exactly in the predicted bin.

The preliminary analysis already shows a 5.4 sigma detection for Dwingeloo-Venus-Dwingeloo, an 8.5 sigma detection for Dwingeloo-Venus-Stockert, and a 9.2 sigma detection when combining the signals of Dwingeloo and Stockert.

They were planning to send complex modulated signals to perform more analysis on the correlations between transmitted and received signals. Unfortunately the transmitter, mounted in Dwingeloo’s focus box for the occasion, started failing after four successful transmissions. They therefore postponed the other experiments to the next Venus conjunction in October 2026.

In the preparation for this experiment, they collaborated with the Deep Space Exploration Society, who were also preparing an EVE experiment of their own, and the Open Research Institute. During the day of the experiment, they had a lot of help from present CAMRAS volunteers. A big thanks also goes to the volunteers of Astropeiler e.V. for observing with the Stockert telescope.

And thank you to camras.nl for that report.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, wondering whether Venus is full of little pits from having radio signals bounced off her continuously, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.

RED alerts for two earthquakes in quick succession in Myanmar were issued by GDACS on Friday morning. The first, a magnitude 7.7, struck at 06h21 UTC at a depth of 10km, and exposed a population of over 6 million to severe shaking. The second, a 6.4 magnitude quake, struck in a nearby area at 06h32 UTC, and endangered the lives of 1.85 million people. At the time of recording this bulletin, casualty numbers have exceeded 1000, with over 2000 people injured, and there is a ghastly YouTube video going round of an incomplete 30-storey building collapsing completely, with workers trapped within. Naturally, transport and communications are severely affected.

Mybroadband.co.za says that insurers have recently warned that extreme weather occurrences, including freakishly strong winds and wind funnels such as tornadoes, are becoming more common in South Africa due to climate change. Local tornado occurrences are not completely unprecedented, with recorded sightings dating back as far as 1905 and multiple formations detected annually.

Meteorologists have generally not focused on these dangerous wind funnels due to their rarity and relatively limited impact compared to other storms.

However, it may surprise some that tornadoes have been responsible for dozens of deaths and injuries in South Africa over the past few decades, and substantial damage to thousands of homes and other buildings.

An article in Wikipedia lists at least 31 significant tornadoes between 1948 and 2025, 18 of which resulted in fatalities.

The most devastating in terms of loss of life occurred in the small Eastern Cape town of Mount Ayliff, on 19 January 1999.

That tornado was classified as F4 on the Fujita scale, with wind speeds between 333km/h and 420km/h, sufficient to throw cars and large objects a considerable distance.

An unclassified category tornado that caused 18 fatalities and 150 injuries in Mthatha just over a month earlier likely made more headlines as former President Nelson Mandela was nearly one of its victims. He was at a pharmacy when the tornado hit but was shielded by his bodyguards while lying on the floor.

Over the past year, there have been at least two confirmed tornadoes, both of which occurred in mid-2024. The stronger of these ripped through parts of Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal, on 3 June 2024, with wind speeds in the range of 218km/h to 266km/h. It claimed the lives of 12 people while causing R1.3 billion in infrastructure damage.

Just a day after that, another tornado was spotted moving between Newcastle and Utrecht, although its path resulted in minimal damage.

On Friday, the British ham radio channel TX Factor released its latest video, an in-depth description of the use of the QO-100 satellite repeater station, and using a very smart up- and down-transverter made by DX Patrol.

The Portuguese company has released a second version of this transverter now, making it possible to convert any uplink radio to transmit on the 2.4 GHz band up to the satellite parked in geostationary orbit on 0 degrees latitude and longitude, and to convert the 10.5 GHz downlink frequency to a receive frequency of your choice as well.

So this is basically a one-box-does-most–of-the-heavy-lifting station accessory. To operate on QO-100, you need the DX Patrol, a transceiver to transmit, a separate receiver (preferably) to work full duplex and listen to yourself on the satellite, a GPS antenna to plug in to the DX Patrol unit, to position yourself correctly, and to generate a lock signal to keep the uplink stable, and then a satellite dish, as small as 40cm in diameter, with the necessary coax to send and receive signals.

Of course sophistication like this doesn’t come cheap, but, by the time you have assembled all the parts yourself, and patched them all together, you probably have invested as much in a homebrew station as in the DX Patrol version 2.

The video is available on YouTube, so look for the channel called TX Factor, and watch Bob McCreadie G0FGX set it all up and conduct an easy QSO.

A quick update of the Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications (DLARC) from Kay Savetz K6KJN reveals that, so far, 149,500 items have been digitized and added, and that’s 19.5 terabytes of information. 1.1 million Pages of data were scanned in 2024 alone, so everything you can possibly think you might ever need is probably already there. Just google Digital Library of Amateur Radio Communications and you will be astounded at what has been compiled so far.

In another article, mybroadband.co.za announced on Thursday that MTN South Africa and low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite service company Lynk Global carried out a successful technical trial of one of the first satellite-to-mobile device phone calls in South Africa. The phone call, made in Vryburg, North West, allowed the companies to test voice call quality and SMS capabilities over an LEO satellite connection. It was conducted following ICASA’s approval of the use of radio frequencies on MTN-licensed IMT spectrum for the duration of the trial.

“The technical trial was part of our work to find potential solutions to the challenges of providing coverage in underserviced, rural and remote areas,” said MTN South Africa CEO Charles Molapisi. He said that the call was a proof-of-concept of MTN’s ability to complement its ground-based cell towers and other infrastructure with LEOs.

“The implications of potentially leveraging satellite partnerships will not only help MTN achieve its goal of 99% broadband population coverage but most importantly, benefit all South Africans,” Molapisi said.

Lynk Global chief commercial officer Dan Dooley said the successful trial was the first time that a satellite phone call was made in Africa using an unmodified phone.

“Importantly, this technology is device-agnostic, ensuring compatibility with existing mobile units and requiring no special modifications,” the companies said.

Satellite calls via older geosynchronous (GEO) satellites require expensive devices with specialised antennas and modems to enable transmission of data between Earth and GEO satellites orbiting at an altitude of 35,786km.

MTN said that LEO satellites typically orbit at altitudes between 160 km and 2,000 km, meaning that their orbital periods are between 90 minutes and a few hours.

“This is suitable for applications that need rapid data communication or frequent re-visits of specific areas,” the company said. “The lower altitude contributes to lower signal travel times, resulting in lower latency. This is crucial for real-time communication, video conferencing and online gaming.”

The mobile network added that direct satellite-to-phone contact offered several other potential benefits, including mass notification capabilities for critical alerts such as weather warnings, health advisories, and humanitarian updates in remote areas.

Thanks to mybroadband.co.za for both their contributions.

This is Dave Reece ZS1DFR, uncertain as to whether he should be using QO-100 or his mobile phone for a satellite contact, and reporting for HAMNET in South Africa.