Personal Space Weather Station

The Personal Space Weather Station project ultimately aims to create a small, multi-instrument system that can make ground-based measurements of the space environment.  The observations from this project will not only be useful to the owner of the system, but also aggregated into a central database for space science and space weather research purporses. Initial work focuses on the development of a scientific-grade high frequency (HF) radio receiver, as well as the necessary software and network infrastructure. This project is led by the The University of Scranton, in collaboration with the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, Inc. (TAPR), Case Western Reserve University / Case Amateur Radio Club W8EDU, the University of Alabama, the New Jersey Institute of Technology Center for Solar Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory.

 

Get Involved

Want to be involved? Both HamSCI and TAPR run very active mailing lists and regular telecons. Please see the HamSCI Get Involved for involvement in the science discusion, and TAPR's tangerinesdr.com for involvement in the engineering discussion. As you can imagine, there is a significant amount of crosstalk between the two groups.

Specific questions can be directed to Nathaniel, W2NAF at hamsci@hamsci.org.

Articles

Presentations

Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank the many volunteers who make this project run, as well as the support of National Science Foundation Grants AGS-2002278, AGS-1932997, and AGS-1932972.

 

Save the Dates: HamSCI Workshop 2021

Thursday, December 10, 2020 - 16:47
Submitted 1 month 1 week ago by w2naf.

Save the dates! The next HamSCI workshop will be held virtually March 19-20, 2021. The HamSCI workshop is an annual meeting to share scientific and engineering ideas and results related to amateur radio, radio propagation, and radio science, as well as foster collaborations between the amateur radio and professional space science and space weather communities. The 2021 workshop will serve as both a team meeting for the Personal Space Weather Station project, as well as a forum for presentations on topics relevant to the HamSCI mission. The format will be similar to virtual March 2020 HamSCI workshop. Thanks to support from the National Science Foundation and The University of Scranton, the cost of this workshop is free. Abstract will be due February 15th. Information regarding abstract submission and other workshop details will be forthcoming. Please join the HamSCI Google Group to stay up-to-date on the latest information.

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New Sporadic E Measurement Results Published in IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation

Monday, December 7, 2020 - 08:50
Submitted 1 month 1 week ago by w2naf.

The IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation have recently accepted new research by Chris Deacon G4IFX, Ben Witvliet PE5B, Simon Steendam, and Cathryn Mitchell M0IBG entitled Rapid and Accurate Measurement of Polarization and Fading of Weak VHF Signals Obliquely Reflected from Sporadic-E Layers. This research uses signals produced by a network of 6 meter amateur radio beacons across Europe.

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Winter Sporadic-E-Like Propagation on 6 Meters

Wednesday, December 2, 2020 - 17:06
Submitted 1 month 2 weeks ago by w2naf.

HamSCI Member Joe Dzekevich K1YOW recently published his article "Winter Sporadic-E-Like Propagation on 6 Meters" in the November 2020 issue of CQ Magazine. Joe writes:

"The question was asked: why do we see sporadic-E like propagation in November and December, when many of the variables like UV radiation and solar exposure are at a minimum, unlike the very active sporadic-E summer months?  Much like it was shown that North Atlantic transatlantic 6m propagation during the summer was made more possible by strategically placed weather storm systems, it looks like a similar effect with very strong jet stream boundaries also affect sporadic-e like communications during the winter months.  This citizen science study is another example how amateur radio can contribute to science, and illustrates the great potentials for studies using ham radio data.  We have many amateur radio stations on the air, using modes like FT8 which make contacts on propagation paths that we thought were previously impossible."

A PDF of the Joe's article is made available here with permission from CQ Amateur Radio magazine.

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