Get Involved

Joining HamSCI

Welcome to the HamSCI community! We are a group of amateur radio operators and scientists working together to study the ionosphere and further the amateur radio hobby. If you are completely new to amateur radio and ionospheric science, take a look at the ARRL's What is Amateur Radio page. That is a great place to learn how to get your amateur radio license and learn the basics for participating in the HamSCI community.

HamSCI consists of many different types of projects accessible to a variety of skill levels. Some are more science focused, some are more engineering focused, and some are more focused on the amateur radio hobby. The best way to get involved is to join some of the mailing lists, participate in the telecons, come to the annual HamSCI workshop. You will meet other people in the HamSCI community that can help you to find a project that best matches your interests and skill level. Have a question? E-mail Nathaniel W2NAF at hamsci@hamsci.org.

HamSCI Google Group

Participate in the HamSCI Community by joining the HamSCI Google Group. The HamSCI Google Group is an e-mail discussion forum to facilitate communication between hams, the professional space and atmsopheric science communities, and anyone else interested. When requesting to join, please include some information about who you are and why you would like to join. Particpation is governed by the HamSCI Community Participation Guidelines. This group is moderated by Nathaniel Frissell W2NAF, Kristina Collins KD8OXT, and David Kazdan AD8Y.

Join the HamSCI Google Group

 

Grape PSWS Google Group

The low-cost version of the Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) is known as the GRAPE*,  developed by Case Western Reserve University. If you would like to participate in the GRAPE portion of the project, please join the HamSCI-Grape Google Group. (*GRAPE = Great Radio Amateur Propagation Experiment)

TangerineSDR TAPR Listserv

Tucson Amateur Packet Radio (TAPR) is an amateur radio organization dedicated to electrical engineering. TAPR has teamed up with HamSCI to design and build portions of the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station, including new software defined radios (SDRs), as well as a ground magnetometer system. If you want to be a part of TAPR's SDR and ground magnetometer engineering work, you should join the TangerineSDR listserv by visiting https://tangerinesdr.com/. The TangerineSDR listserv is administered by TAPR and is more engineering focused than the HamSCI Google Group.

HamSCI Weekly Telecons

There are currently three regularly scheduled telecons which support HamSCI's work. All are open to the public, please see the calendar below to confirm teleconference times and view conference call connection information.

  1. TAPR-HamSCI Technical Session: Weekly telecon, hosted on Mondays at 9 PM Eastern (Tuesday 0200z) by TAPR and The University of Scranton to support collaborative HamSCI-TAPR projects.
  2. HamSCI PSWS Operations: Weekly telecon, Thursdays at 10 AM Eastern (1500z), hosted jointly by the University of Scranton, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Alabama.  The telecon's primary focus is growing and maintaining the PSWS network, along with management of the collected data.
  3. HamSCIence Telecon: Weekly telecon, Thursdays at 4 PM Eastern (2100z) to discuss science topics relevant to HamSCI's research efforts.  Participants and presenters come from various backgrounds:  Professional researchers, academics, students, citizen scientist volunteers.  Listen in, ask questions, contact HamSCI if you have a topic you'd like to present.

Archival recordings of HamSCI and ClementineSDR/TangerineSDR telecons are available here.

HamSCI Calendar

HamSCI Volunteer Contributors

HamSCI works with scientists and radio amateurs around the world to collect data.  (This map is a sample of past contributors, years 2017-2022)