Site Engineering

Upcoming Activities

There will not be a DSES Science meeting in December, as the normal meeting date is close to Christmas Eve. The next scheduled meeting will be the Engineering & Operations meeting on Monday January 13, 2020.

A work trip to the Plishner antenna site in Haswell is planned for Saturday December 28, 2019. Those wishing to carpool can meet at the Ellicott Fire Department at 7:30 AM.

* *

Work trips to the Haswell antenna site are now scheduled for each third Saturday of the month, with weather alternates on Sunday. This third weekend was chosen because it comes between our engineering and science meetings. Having a regular date helps our members plan ahead, especially those who must travel long distances.

Our engineering meetings are held on the second Monday of each month. Members can participate remotely using Teamviewer. Our science meetings are held on the fourth Monday of each month. Start time is 5:30 PM. Please contact us if you would like information to attend.

News

We have begun our 2020 DSES Annual Membership Drive. You may now pay your membership dues for 2020.

[SECOND UPDATE November 27, 2019] Dr. Richard Russel recently attended the Very Large Array (VLA) Imaging course in Socorro, New Mexico. This course taught how to take the data sets from the VLA archive and produce images. Dr. Russel produced this pdf presentation to show us how the results look, and to show us the capability. This update includes the effects of the antenna configurations, and more examples of data reduced images. Also in this post, he presents his first results of hydrogen HI drift scan measurements from his new 9-foot antenna dish at his home.: Very Large Array (VLA) Imaging Results – 2nd Update & HI Drift Scan using 9-ft Dish at Russel Observatory September 2019.

Gary posted a review of our Work trip at the Plishner antenna site, Saturday November 16, 2019.

The Minutes from our November 11, 2019 Engineering & Operations Meeting are now posted. Written by DSES Secretary Floyd Glick.

Bill Miller and Gary Agranat represented DSES at the 2019 Haswell Bazaar, on Saturday October 26th: DSES at the 2019 Haswell Bazaar.

The DSES Technical Operations and Engineering Meeting Minutes for October 14, 2019 are now posted. Written by DSES Secretary Floyd Glick.

Ed Corn and Steve Plock continued work at the Haswell antenna site on Friday October 25, while the weather was good: Antenna Work Site Trip – October 25, 2019 – Ed Corn and Steve Plock.

Ed Corn, Steve Plock, and Gary Agranat completed erecting the 50 foot ham radio tower at the Plishner antenna site on Saturday October 19, 2019. Please see the trip report posted: Antenna Raising.

The Minutes for the September 2019 Technical & Operations Meeting is now posted. Written by Bill Miller.

Dr. Richard Russel DSES Science Lead, reports on his Hydrogen Drift Scan using the new 9-foot Dish at his home in Colorado Springs. These are his first successful results using equipment at his home. He shows his first mapping of HI hydrogen in the Milky Way galactic plane, at 1420 MHz.

Website Update Notes

Current experiments now in progress at the Plishner Radio Astronomy & Space Science Center site in Haswell:

60-foot dish antenna:
[August 19, 2018] The 60 foot dish antenna is now periodically being used for joint observing runs for SETI with Skip Crilly at the Greenbank Observatory in West Virginia. These joint observations are discussed in Skip's presentation slides from the 2018 SARA Western Conference at Stanford. See the slides on our Publications Page, in the Science Section.

With the pointing systems and receivers now being validated, we also are starting to use the 60-foot dish antenna for detecting astronomical radio source objects and the Milky Way at 1.4 GHz. We currently are using a SpectraCyber 1420 MHz Hydrogen Line Spectrometer. And we are starting to try RASDR4 (Radio Astronomy Software Defined Radio). A 1.4 GHz feed designed by Steve Plock is at the focus.

Jupiter Radio Science Experiment "Radio Jove":
20.1 MHz monitoring of Jupiter and its moon Io, using a 2-element phased dipole antenna - currently down, pending repair of the receiver. [Aug. 18. 2018]

Experiments in Colorado Springs:

430 MHz drift scan

Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance Monitor (SID):
- 25 kHz VLF Solar flare monitoring

More information about our currently running experiments