Deep Space Exploration Society
Colorado — Radio Astronomy at the Speed of Light
Below are the DSES Technical & Operations Meetings Minutes for November 12, 2018 and January 14, 2019, by DSES Vice President and Acting Secretary Bill Miller. Please click the links to open the PDF files.
DSES Technical & Operations Meetings Minutes for January 14, 2019
DSES Technical & Operations Meetings Minutes for November 12, 2018
By Paul Berge.
Winston W. Scott Jr. “ Scotty” callsign K0TEP and a DSES lifetime member died Feb 2, 2018.
Scotty was a true gentleman and a scholar.
He was born in Escondido, Ca in 1935. He earned an Electrical Engineering (EE) degree at UC Berkeley and was employed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) in Boulder in the Electromagnetic Engineering Lab for many years.
He was the sole inventor of an RF amp-meter patented while he worked there. His work included papers published in the IEEE Proceedings.
Scotty married Barbara in 1959 and they raised four daughters. After more than 50 years of marriage Barbara died in 2017.
Scotty was aware of the work done by NBS at the Table Mountain Field Site, which included thunderstorm detection, over the horizon radar, tropospheric-scatter, and he also knew that the 18 meter dishes were abandoned.
DSES was founded by engineers Jan King and Rex Craig, Scotty’s son-in-law (also at NBS/NIST), who were working on AMSAT micro-satellites. They were able to convince the Department of Commerce that letting this amateur group use an 18 meter dish on Table Mountain was a good idea.
Scotty provided inspiration, interest, and funding to help launch and sustain DSES on Table Mountain for many years.
After his work at NBS, Scotty co-founded Laerie Inc. in Berthoud, CO, a successful business specializing in repair calibration and certification of test and measurement equipment.
Scotty was a kind and generous man who is being missed by all who knew him. DSES probably wouldn’t have existed without him.
Deep Space Exploration Society
4164 Austin Bluffs, #562
Colorado Springs, CO 80918-2928
To all Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES) Current and Former Members:
Want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Today marks the first day of our 2019 membership drive. DSES started the year 2018 with 51 members and ended the year with 63 members. Our organization relies on annual membership dues to fund most all of the DSES projects and monthly operating costs at our Paul Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center near Haswell, CO. Annual dues for voting members, continues to be $50.00. For those who wish to be involved as non-voting members the price is $20.00. Annual elections of board members/officers will be in early February. You must be current on your dues to vote in this election. For those recent members who have joined since October 1, 2018, your dues will carry you over into 2019.
You can pay your dues on the DSES web site (DSES.science) by credit card or PayPal to dsestm@gmail.com You can also mail dues to the following addresses: DSES, 4164 Austin Bluffs Pkwy #562, Colorado Springs, CO 80918-2928. Your canceled check, Paypal receipt or credit receipt will be your acknowledgement of your dues paid. If you want a separate receipt signifying payment, please note that with your payment and I will mail you a receipt. Please Include your current mailing address, email address, amateur radio call sign (if any), and phone number. Also let me know if you DO NOT want this info to be released to the general membership. I would like to pass this membership information containing email addresses and phone numbers out to all members.
Please feel free to email or call me if you have any questions or if you have a change of any contact information, email, phone or snail mail.
Thank You for your support.
Myron F. Babcock
DSES Treasurer
dsestm<at>gmail<dot>com
December 28, 2018
Dr. Richard Russel put together this slide set about the latest results from this month’s observing. Contents:
Dr. Russel is now utilizing Doppler shift measurements, and hence velocity, to also estimate the Earth’s position in the Solar System.
DSES Observation Trip December 2018 [Click to open the pptx slide show file.]
These are the presentations from our DSES Science Meeting on November 26, 2018.
Dr. Richard Russel reported on the latest results from the Milky Way galactic rotation rate observations of November 16. Also, he compiled all of the observations of individual radio sources done with the 60-foot antenna with the Spectracyber 1420 MHz receiver. He includes descriptions of the objects and photos, as well frequency plot observations.
DSES Science Meeting Dr Russel 11-26-18
Dayton Jones K6DJ talked with the group about Small Antenna Calibration at JPL.
Dayton Jones Science Meeting Presentation 11-26-18 DSES_ant_cal_v2
Geographically-spaced Synchronized Signal Detecction System – Simultaneous SETI Observations Oct 2017 to Nov 2018. Please click to read the PDF presentation.
Prepared for the Deep Space Exploration Society by Skip Crilly. Revised November 8, 2018.
This is an updated revision of Skip Crilly’s slide set, originally presented last summer. Skip points out that the revision includes a summary of the pulses of November 2017 through November 2018.. Two newer NRAO 5690 plots in the presentation show the very stable performance of the telescope, and the narrower Plishner beamwidth.
Bob Haggart N0CTV is working on building a new stairway and porch to the communications trailer at the radio telescope site. He started the work at home after taking measurements. Today he traveled to the site to continue the work. With him were his grandson Allen and Allen’s friend Ben. Bob writes:
“We arrived at 11 AM. Worked on the porch and covered the fan with 24″ X 24″ plywood. Ran out of time but did get the porch assembled and painted inside and out. The hand railing is only temporary and will finish next work day on the 17th.”
Bob’s work is replacing a small simple set of metal steps that has given us access to the communications trailer.
The new porch and stairway provide a great improvement.
Thanks to Bob for all this work, and for improving the access to the communications trailer.
This is a summary of our activities at the Plishner radio telescope site during the third week of October 2018. Steve Plock, Ed Corn, and Gary Agranat contributed to this report.
Participants this weekend were Gary Agranat, Paul Berge, Tony Bigbee, Ed Corn, Hans Gaensbauer, Dave Molter, Steve Plock, and Rich Russel.
Our plan for the rest of the year is to work at the site during the third weekend of each month. The Friday evening is devoted to astronomical observing, and the rest of the weekend is then devoted primarily to infrastructure and equipment work.
60-foot Antenna Observing, by Gary Agranat, WA2JQZ
On Friday afternoon and evening Rich, Gary, and Paul did 1420 MHz neutral hydrogen observing with the 60-foot antenna. The primary observing goal was to take regular measurements of the hydrogen signal along the Milky Way galactic plane at 10 degree intervals, from the galactic center to about 110 degrees (a little more than the first quadrant). The Doppler shift of the hydrogen was measured at each 10 degree point. From that, Rich later used some basic geometry to derive a velocity and distance from the galactic center for each measurement. A second goal was to observe several known, strong galactic radio sources that could be used in the future for calibration of our observations, and also to see if we are capable of observing those sources in a consistent way (without unknown biases). A third goal was to observe additional galactic sources as targets of opportunity, to see how well we do, and to also see what problems we hit.
Galactic plane observing started at about 5 pm local time, when the galactic center in Sagitarius had risen high enough in the sky for us to observe. The galactic plane and most of the other observing were done with the 60 foot antenna pointed along the meridian (180 degrees azimuth to the south and zero degrees to the north), in order to eliminate the Earth’s rotational motion in the Doppler shift measurements. We observed until about 10:30 pm, when the team was then quite tired. To warm us up during the evening, we made a batch of hot apple cider.
Details of the observations and results were discussed at the science meeting on Monday October 22nd, and those will be covered in a separate post.
– Gary WA2JQZ
We’ll continue with the discussion of the weekend infrastructure work.
Saturday Infrastructure Work by Ed Corn, KC0TBE
Our first order of business was to re-service the toilet and spare in the outhouse. They now both have RV antifreeze for winter. Next installed was a portable heater for winter operations and I labeled all the breakers in the out house. I then labeled the doors with instructions for emergency exit and the safety pin for privacy at the main door.
With the help of Gary, Hans, and Paul we have the first 3 tower sections in place at the bunker, along with the first set of guy wires. [More about the tower below.]
-73’s Ed KC0TBE
DSES Site Work Report by Steve Plock KL7IZW, DSES President
Paul Berge worked on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Because he travels from Lyons, Co. he prefers to maximize his efforts each visit. Also the weather window for the year is closing. I attempt to support his efforts as best as I can. Paul provided support for Rich Russel’s data acquisition which included galactic Doppler measurements. The team knocked off before midnight. Results have already been detailed in the Science meeting on 22nd of October.
On Saturday Ed installed a heater in the outhouse, winterized the RV toilets, and labeled the outhouse breakers.
During Saturday afternoon Hans, Ed, Paul, Steve and Gary all worked together to erect the new communications tower. The first set of guys were finished at 23 ft. by Ed Corn doing all the climbing. The majority of the rest of Saturday myself and Paul spent evaluating the elevation limit switch operation, including testing complete functionality with fault clearing via the built in override capability.
Later that day, Tony Bigbee showed up, and Paul and Steve supported subsequent hydrogen observations using the RASDR4 receiver.
The majority of Sunday was consumed by lubrication of the dish and adjustment of the azimuth drive chain. I also installed the conduit in the elevation bulkhead so that Bill Miller can complete his synchro wiring project.
Sunday Dave Molter worked into the night using the 500W floodlights and mixed over 1000lbs of concrete to try to prevent continued erosion in the ramp area. A big thanks to all who participated in this cooperative effort.
– Submitted by: Steve Plock, President DSES
Photos by Gary, from Friday and Saturday:
Our DSES ham radio club station K0PRT participated in the 2018 Washington State QSO Party, called the “Salmon Run” on September 15. We received this nice certificate today for our participation. We made 26 contacts on the 20 and 40 meter bands from our station in the bunker, using the multi-band vertical antenna. 22 of the contacts were with Morse Code (CW), the other 4 were with SSB phone.
All of the US states have ham radio QSO parties at some time in the year, on particular weekends. The QSO parties give the hams in those states a chance to get on the air and meet the rest of us, and gives us a chance to meet them. Canada also has some QSO parties, and there are some around the rest of the world as well.
Participation in QSO Parties is one of the ways we as hams in DSES can connect with the ham radio community. On September 15, 2018 we also participated in the Iowa and New Jersey QSO Parties, which were running that weekend. From what our contacts in New Jersey told us, we seemed to be one of the few stations from Colorado reaching or trying to contact New Jersey.
