Have you ever wondered how to interpret the Doppler shift spectrograms generated by Personal Space Weather Stations, eg Grape 1s, Grape 1 DRFs, Grape 2s, WSPRDaemon SDRs? Wonder no more, as a team of skilled HamSCI volunteers has assembled an 'Atlas of Forms', showing examples of ionospheric phenomena as seen in Doppler shift spectrograms: Read the Docs Atlas of Spectrograms
Many readers may wish to begin with the first topic, The Ionosphere and HF Propagation.
The space news for 27 December 2024 is asteroid 2024 YR4. It's heading this way, or at least roughly this way, with a current low estimated probability of Earth impact on December 22, 2032. That estimate will almost certainly be reduced by there won't be much data with which to do that until 2028.
The abstract submission window for the 2025 HamSCI Workshop, to be held at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, March 14-15, 2025, is now open. The abstract submission deadline, for both oral presentations and posters, is February 10, 2025. Abstracts can submitted via this link: 2025 Workshop Abstract Submission
The week of December 9, 2024 many HamSCI members are presenting their research at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The AGU Annual meeting is one of the largest professional geoscience meetings in the world, and consists of over 25,000 attendees from over 100 countries. The scientific program includes sessions pertaining to all areas of geophysics, including space weather, the solar wind, auroral activity, the ionosphere, and the neutral atmosphere. Below is a list of selected presentations and sessions being given by HamSCI members (and friends), or of general interest to ham radio operators. The complete scientific program is available here.
The first issue of the new HamSCI newsletter is now available! Issues contain news about past and future HamSCI happenings, such as research projects, in-person meetings and on-air events. Many issues include HamSCI member profiles, stories on tools and techniques used in HamSCI's research work, plus general interest pieces. Reading the HamSCI Newsletter is a great way to learn about what, who, how and why HamSCI is making the connection between space physics and amateur radio! Special thanks to Ed Efchak WX2R for being the driving force behind this, Dr. Mary Lou West KC2NMC for editing and writing, and Vikki Lawhon for graphics design and layout. The HamSCI newsletter archive can be found at hamsci.org/newsletter.
Congratulations to HamSCI member Hyomin Kim, Assistant Professor of Physics at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and his co-authors* on the publication of a paper in HardwareX entitled Citizen science: Development of a low-cost magnetometer system for coordinated space weather monitoring.
The agenda for the March 22-23, 2024 HamSCI workshop at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio has been published and can be viewed here! The workshop will focus on the theme of Alignments - between the Sun, Moon and Earth; between collegiate amateur radio recreation and STEM curriculum; between data collection and analysis; between professional and citizen science.
We are looking for presenters for the March 22-23, 2024 HamSCI workshop at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio! The workshop will focus on the theme of Alignments - between the Sun, Moon and Earth; between collegiate amateur radio recreation and STEM curriculum; between data collection and analysis; between professional and citizen science. We are preparing for the solar eclipse of 8 April 2024, for which Cleveland will be in totality. If you would like to present, please visit https://hamsci.org/hamsci2024 to submit an abstract. Abstracts are due by February 10, 2024. Presenters will be notified by March 1, 2024.
Dozens of Grape Personal Space Weather Stations are now on the air, and the network is growing on a regular basis. In the last week, stations in Cleveland, OH and Jacksonville, FL were added to the Grape network. They were Node numbers 63 and 64, respectively. You can learn more about the Grape 1, including all of the details needed to build, operate and contribute data to the HamSCI PSWS Grape Server here. The full Grape story, with links to the Grape 1 and the up and coming Grape 2 are here on the HamSCI site.
SAQ (callsign SAQ) is a VLF transmitting station located in Grimeton, Sweden and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site operated by the Alexanderson Association. The heart of the transmitter is the Alexanderson Alternator and six antenna towers that are iconic to the site. Twice a year, there is a CW transmission at 17.2 kHz with an inspirational message to listeners all over the world. On Alexanderson Day, July 2nd, 2023, SAQ is scheduled to be on the air. More details can be found here (https://alexander.n.se/en/alexanderson-day-2023/) and contains a tentative schedule and a YouTube live broadcast for those who would like to watch the event live.
