4th Annual Deep Space Exploration Society Open House – Public Invited

4th Annual Deep Space Exploration Society Open House – Public Invited

Saturday August 10, 2019, starting at 10 AM, at the Plishner Radio Telescope Site, located on Kiowa County Road 20, 5 miles south of Haswell, CO.

  • Tours and educational programs will be offered during the afternoon. Radio Astronomy projects will be demonstrated, including galactic spectral Hydrogen Line and Pulsar detection with our 60-foot antenna dish, and Jupiter-Io radio astronomy (Radio Jove), Meteor detection, and the IBT (Itty Bitty Radio Telescope). Optical Astronomy and Ham Radio operating will be demonstrated.
  • Solar Optical Telescopes will be available to view the sun and its sunspots. Other optical telescopes will be available during the evening hours. The annual Perseid meteor shower starts on the Aug. 10th weekend. Meteors may be seen at night, sky conditions permitting. 
  • Food will be served for lunch and dinner. Ice water and lemonade will be available for all throughout the day.  
  • Overnight RV and tent camping will be permitted. Please let DSES know what type of RV/trailer you will come in. A limited number of 20 amp electrical hook ups should be available. A $10/night donation will be asked for electrical connections. Hotel rooms may be available at the Cobblestone Inn & Suites in Eads, CO, about a half hour drive away.

For more information, please contact us at our email address: information (a)dses(dot)science or destm(a)gmail(dot)com.

Plishner Antenna Site Work Trip Reports for July 10 & 20, 2019

By Ed Corn

Trip Report for July 10

My wife and I spent the day at the site cleaning up the last of the electric basic infrastructure build out. That portion is complete with the following items completed.

  • Basic plug ins complete including a GFI plug near the sink and one in the bathroom for portable heater.
  • A pre wire and extra switch in bathroom for future ex-host fan and an electric water heater for shower and kitchen sink.
  • Box and wiring for sewer pump when that project starts.
  • Wall switch and permanent light in sleeping area.
  • The tunnel lights now have a control switch at both ends.
  • 240 volt plugins for amplifiers at the Amateur operating position.
  • The sub main electric panel in the battery room is complete and the main panel has the trim cover installed.

There will be extra plugs and services  that will be needed in the future but basic build out is complete.

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Scheduled Maintenance Trip Report for July 20

Steve and I went down Friday the 19th. We met Paul Berge at the house in Haswell. Paul and his wife came down Thursday and stayed over Thursday and Friday nights. Steve and I stayed in the bunker Friday night.

Paul worked on finishing installing the control wiring in the pedestal in the conduit for mechanical protection, and he installed heavy duty override switches in the override panel in the comm trailer. He also gathered information for some updates on the control wiring. He will be working on the updates at his home computer.

Steve worked on the fiber link from the feed point to the comm trailer. The wind came up Saturday so Steve will complete work later as the wind was a safety issue trying to work up at the feed point. Steve did say the az/el readout worked after cycling power.

I have the two 30 amp plug-in circuits at the old generator building completed to give us 2 more RV parking spots with heavy enough power to run 1 air conditioner in each RV. Just for information to turn lights on in the generator building you will have to turn the circuit breakers on in the distribution panel in the middle  of the North wall.