These are photos taken during our work trip the Plishner radio telescope site on Sunday July 23, 2017. – Gary WA2JQZ
Photos from our site work trip July 23, 2017
Category: DSES posts
DSES August 12, 2017 Open House Event Report
This is a look back at our Second Annual Astronomy Open House at our Plishner radio telescope site, written by club Secretary Bill Miller. Includes many photos, in pdf format.
July 10, 2017 Technical Planning Meeting Minutes
Link to minutes: 2017-07-10 DSES Technical Planning Meeting Minutes
* * *
Dear DSES members and interested parties,
Attached are the July 10th DSES technical meeting minutes. Please review.
In the future we will post these and past and future minutes on the http://dses.science/ website.
July and August are very busy months for the DSES. Here is a summary of the activities. This is a great time to get involved. Here is a summary of the upcoming activities in the next two months from the website. These and other work is elaborated in the attached meeting minutes.
*** DSES Annual Astronomy Open House at Plishner ***
Friday August 11, 5-12 PM, and Saturday August 12, 2017.
Work trip to Plishner radio telescope site in Haswell scheduled Sunday July 23, 2017: Install antenna feed, install antenna readout/control, finish propane tank work, re-connect internet hotspot, test harmonic generator source, battery swap, repair Jupiter science antenna.
QSO Party: Saturday September 3, 2017 – We plan to operate our ham radio station at the radio telescope site for the Colorado QSO Party
Dr. Richard Russell AC0UB will present a paper on “Ionospheric Reflection” at the 2017 Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers Annual Conference at NRAO Greenbank, WV. Dates: July 23 – 26, 2017.
Ray Uberbecken AA0L will present at the 2017 Central States VHF Society Conference in Albuquerque, NM. Conference dates: July 27 – 30, 2017. Ray’s topic is about an original engineering design and technique he developed, “Using High Power FM stations to Monitor Meteor Activity Utilizing the 19-kHz Pilot Carrier”. This approach to Meteor Scatter can take the place of using broadcast analog TV signals, which now are mostly gone.
Regards,
Bill Miller KC0FHN
DSES Secretary
DSES Plishner Work Trip Report July-02-2017
The following report was provided by Ed Corn and Steve Plock. Special thanks to Gary Agranat for providing the pictures.
Myron Babcock
DSES Treasurer
Greetings all:
This is a summary of our trip to Plishner Sunday 7-2-2017. Steve, Dave, Bill, Gary and my self made a very successful trip with a few exceptions.
Dave, Bill and Gary worked on the tumble weeds, cleaning all out of the ramp. I am positive they combined lost a bunch of weight (sweat down their backs) It was a bit warm. We all were involved in installing the chain link and construction safety fence around the perimeter of the ramp. We had enough fencing to do about ¾ of the perimeter. The rest will be completed the next trip down. This should take care of about 95% of the tumble weed problem.
Steve and I went to the comm. Trailer and re established the bunker battery monitor line. We discovered that Myron’s Hot Spot adapter has quit functioning. (DOA) I will get the unit back to Myron for exchange with his carrier. We need an agenda Item at the next engineering meeting to discuss the failure and preventative measures to prevent future failures.
Steve and I went to the generator tank and changed the wet leg valve. The excess flow check valve did check lock as designed so we did not have to depressurize the tank.
I corrected the wiring on the start/stop remote stations for the generator and Steve went to the bunker to help with the fencing.
After lunch we removed the feed and controller for the dish and Dave will deliver to Ray for modification.
I know I have forgotten some things the rest will have to fill in.
On the trip back Dave had a slow leak in a tire. Bill got him aired up and headed west. Steve and I headed home in my pick up. Just before Punkin Center I ran out of propane and switched fuels too late. This disabled my vehicle. So we put Steve in Bills van for the trip back to Ellicott and I called a favor from a friend who came down and recovered me. As of this writing the pick up is back on the road. Just too long of a day to make repairs on the road.
Submitted
Ed KC0TBE
* *
Steve Added:
Myself and Dave Molter removed the multiband feed from the dish and Dave Molter delivered it to Ray’s house along with the feed control panel which I removed from the comm trailer.
The original station clock has been put back near operating position in comm trailer. Bill Miller inflated tires on bunker transport wagon. I removed the hotspot from the comm. trailer and when Myron is given a replacement from his wireless provider I recommend that we re-install it in the bunker because there is a much better environmental conditions for it to operate. The main valve on the 1000 gal tank was successfully replaced by myself and Ed Corn and tank can be filled after leak test is performed. Ed will contact Haswell Propane this week to arrange pressure test and fill. Please distribute.
Thanks, Steve KL7IZW
* *
Bill added:
Additionally Steve and Ed loaded some of the old excess test gear and servers from the bunker onto Ed’s truck and sold them at the PPRAA ham fest the following Saturday. Bill brought back another one of the bad 6 volt deep cycle battery cores and will get the other from Ed to turn in for credit for two new batteries for the battery room on the comm. trailer.
Bill KC0FHN
The spiral staircase we constructed for the bunker, as a secondary/emergency exit, now being painted.
Deep Space Exploration Society 2016 Highlights
DSES Plishner Work trip report May-28-2017
Originally posted by Myron Babcock, DSES Treasurer, June 2, 2017.
Special Thanks to Ray Uberecken, AA0L, for providing this detailed report. Thanks to Gary Agranat, WA2JQZ, for providing the photographs.
Sunday’s work trip to Plishner was to say the least ‘very productive’.
Ed Corn replaced the spark plugs in the generator and it fired up and ran great all day.
Michael worked in the bunker cleaning it up some and provided a great lunch. Thanks Gail, the salad and cobbler were perfect.
Ray and Ed Johnson tested a new position readout and controller and after fixing a few errors on Ray’s part it worked great. The controller part is not complete yet but that is being worked on now.
Ray and Floyd installed the 1/4 wave shorted stub at the feed and replaced the 1420 preamp. We didn’t have to remove the feed to fix it.
Floyd took the six metre antenna down and tightened the reflector element and then put it back up.
Rich and Ed J. worked on the computer installing the readout software that Ed J. wrote and worked on improvements for the future needs along with Bill.
Ray and Rich got the Spectracyber set up and running.
Bill and Ed C. worked on replacing batteries in the shed and fixing a few issues.
Ed C. finished the welding on the steps of the spiral staircase. I think the stairs are ready for scraping and painting.
Bill took video with his drone for inclusion in the package to send to the Plishners.
Gary organized the ham shack and managed to work a few contacts.
I probably forgot a few other projects but needless to say it was a good day.
ARRL DX CW contest – 2017 February 18
Posted February 26, 2017, updated March 2.
Last weekend, while we were working on the radio telescope (reinstalling the antenna feed at the focus), we also spent a few hours participating in the ARRL DX CW contest. This is an annual ham radio contest sponsored by the ARRL, done in two parts. In February (this month) is the contest for using Morse Code (CW). In March is the contest for using voice. The goal is for hams in the continental U.S. and Canada to contact hams everywhere else, and vice versa. We used our ham radio station at the site, which includes a 100 watt transceiver, an antenna tuner, and a folded dipole suspended above the communications trailer. For sending code we used just a straight traditional key.
We succeeded in making 27 contacts with 18 overseas DX locations. These are the places we contacted:
Antigua & Barbuda
Argentina
Aruba
Bonaire
Brazil
Cape Verde
Cayman Island
Chile
Columbia
Costa Rica
Hawaii
Jamaica
Montserrat
Tonga
Turks & Caicos Islands
Uruguay
U.S. Virgin Islands
Venezuela
A31MM in Tonga was a nice surprise, and was our longest-distance contact, at 6600 miles. Tonga is in the western Pacific, north of New Zealand. That and D4C in Cape Verde (about 4500 miles distance) took some patience and skill, but they were worth the effort as those are not common DX to work.
We mostly used the 15-meter band, which had good propagation openings to the Caribbean and across the equator. If you look on a globe or world map, Tonga and Cape Verde are across the equator from Colorado. That suggests we benefitted from Trans Equatorial Propagation (TEP). We managed to hear one station in Europe, in Poland, but couldn’t make the contact. 20 meters was heavily crowded with domestic stations (which we couldn’t contact in this contest), and so we didn’t use that band much. The 10-meter band was open enough that we made our Chile contact there. On Log Book of the World, which we need for the DXCC award, we received so far 12 confirmations:
Argentina LU4EG
Aruba P40R
Bonaire PJ4X
Brazil PP5NY
Cape Verde D4C
Costa Rica TI5W
Hawaii KH6LC, WH7W
Tonga A31MM
Turks & Caicos Islands VP5K
Uruguay CW5W
U.S. Virgin Islands KP2M
Venezuela YV5OIE
I expect most 0f the rest of our contacts will confirm on Log Book of the World in the near future, as this sort of contest is commonly used to achieve credits toward DXCC.
We also started to receive confirmations on eQSL as well. See the accompanying card images bel0w.
These contests are generally fun and good learning experiences. We can participate in more in the future. I will be happy to help anyone in the group take part while we are at the site. Contests can help develop good ham skills – including developing good operator practices and learning first-hand how propagation can change during the day across the bands. You can be at any experience level, including beginner. With some experience, you may find yourself developing some strategies. Contests also can be fun geography lessons. You can contact hams in so many different places, including places you didn’t know about.
73, Gary WA2JQZ
Preliminary Baseline 420 MHZ Celestial Drift Scan Survey, December 2016
Here is my fist shot at a survey! A lot of things I can fix for next survey, planned for after Christmas.
1) Will have a 15dB preamp installed on mast
2) Will raise frequency to midrange of antenna sweet spot (435 MHz)
3) Will do a better alignment of antenna
This was fun!!!!!!
Rich
Dr. Rich Russel
drrichrussel@netscape.net
Link to Preliminary Baseline 420 MHZ Celestial Drift Scan Survey, December 2016: 420-mhz-drift-scan-survey-rev-4
New Milky Way H Map – Incredible Detail
Sky & Telescope has a short, illustrated news item today about high resolution 1H (atomic hydrogen) observations of our galaxy from Australia and Germany. It includes a video showing how the view changes with wavelength due to Doppler shift. I thought this would be good to share; this is what we’ll be looking for with the HI drift scans.
Astronomers Map Millky Way in Incredible Detail – Sky & Telescope
Read the Sky & Telescope article.
DSES Science Update 9-26-16 Phased Array and Interferometry Basics
Download this title as PDF: Phased Array and Interferometry Basics