In a recent initiative aimed at strengthening community ties, Rob McMasters, a valued Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES) member with roots in Las Animas and now residing in Idaho, organized a noteworthy event on Saturday, April 26th, 2025, following the Friday Santa Fe Trails Days celebration. This gathering was specifically designed for educators and interested individuals from neighboring communities, many of whom Rob has longstanding connections with from his upbringing.
Read a report by Bill Miller DSES VP on the event here: Local Event
The May 7, 2025, Ham Nation podcast featured DSES with Paul Sobon NO0T and Bill Miller KC0FHN covering our various activities. You can find the presentation at DSES Ham Nation starting at 41:40 in the video.
Paul Sobon, DSES President and EVE25 project manager, has written a report covering all aspects of this project. The EVE experiment was conducted on March 22, 2025.
The 2025 Western Conference of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers was held on March 14th through the 16th. Bill Miller, DSES VP, attended and presented a talk on the DSES facilities and activities.
In his report, in addition to an overview of the conference, there are links to the presentation video recording and slides.
Bill Miller provided this report on the DSES team judging at the Pike Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair:
On Saturday, February 22nd the DSES team consisting of Barb McAllister, Roger Oakey, Bill Thomas, and Bill Miller participate as special awards judges for the Pike Peak Regional Science and Engineering Fair.
We judged the senior and junior projects by splitting them into two-person teams. For time savings with so many projects to cover, we tried to judge only those projects that had some relevant aspect to what we do in our society involving, space science, radio, computers, engineering, energy, and other technically relevant areas.
Doug Leber provided the following report on the recent Las Animas High School Visit to the DSES site:
The Deep Space Exploration Society (DSES) hosted its first high school field trip on Wednesday, January 22, 2025, when seventeen Las Animas High School students and three staff members toured the Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center outside Haswell, CO. About half the students will participate in this year’s Colorado Science Olympiad competition. Jennifer Pointon, Science Olympiad coach, and Las Animas High School counselor, said she wanted students to see the Plishner facilities and learn how DSES can provide opportunities for research and mentorship in astronomy, radio, electronics, and engineering. Joshua Japhet (Las Animas HS Dean of Students and Science teacher) and Cody Hines (Las Animas HS Instructional Coach) also helped make this visit successful.
Bill Miller, DSES Vice President, gave an overview of the organization’s history and the years of effort required to revive the 60-foot-diameter radio telescope at the Haswell site. He introduced radio astronomy and some of the studies DSES members have conducted since restoring the telescope, including detecting pulsars and masers, observing solar and planetary radio emissions, and mapping the hydrogen line to show which galaxies are moving toward or away from Earth.
DSES Board member Ray Uberecken and DSES member Roger Oakey showed students how we control the dish to track and focus on deep space objects as Earth revolves. Mr. Japhet said students enjoyed watching how the huge dish moved. Mr. Uberecken also showed different ways radio frequency signals are represented, using an oscilloscope to show a signal’s waveform in real-time (the frequency and shape of an electrical signal) and the same signal in a waterfall display, which shows its intensity and relationship to other signals nearby on the radio spectrum.
Students then braved the intense winds and cold to venture to the bunker location of the DSES amateur radio station, where Board member Paul Sobon demonstrated how long-distance contacts are made using high-frequency (HF) transceivers. Under his supervision, several students learned to call ‘CQ,’ the amateur radio shorthand for “I’m here and ready to take your call!” Unfortunately, because band conditions were poor, no student got a response. Later, Paul Sobon reached a radio amateur in the Canary Islands, and students observed two-way HF radio communication between stations over 5,000 miles apart.
Since 2009, society members have devoted hundreds of hours to rebuilding the Plishner site. In 2023, a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) provided funds to complete a new building suitable for hosting groups.
DSES President Myron Babcock noted that this field trip visit to the Plishner Radio Astronomy and Space Sciences Center reflected the dreams of Michael Lowe, former Board DSES Board President, who sought to create a center for radio astronomy and space science education in Southeast Colorado. Over the next year, DSES hopes to host more school trips to the Plishner Center and work with area middle- and high-school students to advance their studies in science and radio.
If you are a parent, teacher, or school representative interested in learning more about DSES and how the society can support your students, please contact Doug Leber, the DSES education outreach coordinator.
Bill Miller KC0FHN DSES VP has compiled a detailed list of all the major DSES activities for 2024. It’s an amazing set of accomplishments that the society can be proud of.
The Deep Space Exploration Society participated in the 2024 ARRL EME contest using the K0PRT station operating on 23 cm (1296 MHz). This was the first major contest that was held at the new building, and it was a very successful operation with over 20 participants across the two weekends. Paul NO0T coordinated the activity with several out-of-town visitors in attendance.
The first weekend, October 19-20, was impacted by a severe storm that came through Haswell on Friday night and prevented operations for the first day. After the storm it was discovered that there was a failure in the dish movement mechanism. After climbing inside the pedestal, a broken chain was found on the azimuth drive. After two trips to the Eads NAPA auto parts store a replacement chain was put into operation. This allowed the station to participate in the contest on the second day.
The second weekend, November 16-17, had very good attendance with some local visitors, good food, and folks sleeping over in the new building. The heating, kitchen and restroom in the new building worked out great for those that attended. Thanks to Bill KC0FHN for insuring that the new building was operational. In addition to the operators on site, there was also a remote operation by Mark VK6PY. Mike K0FYR shot a great video covering the second weekend of the contest: ARRL EME 2024.
Alex K6VHF provided a detailed breakdown of the contacts made during the contest: Contest Results. Highlights include 163 contacts, of which 9 were CW, the rest were Q65 Digital. There were 31 countries worked, across 5 contents and 18 zones. This included an amazing contact with Martin PJ4MM in Bonaire who was running 10 watts into a 63-element antenna. We were the first US station to work him. See the photo below that shows an in-person exchange of QSL cards at Alex’s house.
Over 50% of the contacts were to Europe. With a score of 1,536,800 points, we likely finished in the top 5 worldwide. If we had been able to operate on the first night in October, we would have done even better!
Equipment used include the DSES 60-foot dish, Icom 705 and “Dianne” – a 1296 MHz transverter with 300 watts of power. Various software programs include WSJT-X, Win4Icom, N1MM+, Splashtop (for remote access) and the DSES custom built antenna tracking software.
Thanks to everyone who participated and cleaned up after the event.
Bill Miller, DSES VP, has written a great report on the DSES Open House that was held on October 5, 2024. It was a very successful event with over 100 attendees enjoying the new building and other activities.
