The Deep Space Exploration Society 2018 Annual Year End Report

DSES Annual Report 2018b

Please click the link to read The Deep Space Exploration Society 2018 Annual Year End Report, in PDF. Written by Bill Miller, DSES Vice President and acting Secretary.

News & Announcement Board

Upcoming Activities

The next scheduled work trip to the Plishner Radio Telescope site will be on the weekend of April 19 & 20, 2019. Dr. Richard Russel plans to observe with the 60 foot antenna on the evening of Friday April 19. Engineering and infrastructure work will be done on Saturday April 20. An engineering work trip is also scheduled for the third weekend in May, 2019, on the 18th and 19th. Contact us if you would like more information.

The next DSES Science Meeting will be on Monday April 22, 2019 at 5:30 pm at the home of Dr. Richard Russel in Colorado Springs. Please contact us if you would like more information to attend.

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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

DSES members attended the 2019 Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers Western Conference, held March 22 to 25, 2019, at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Richard Russel, Skip Crilly, Hans Gaensbauer, and Tony Bigbee presented papers. Also attending were Ray Uberecken, Steve Plock, Bill Miller, Paul Berge, Brian Nelson, and Gary Agranat. There were field trips on Saturday evening to the NOAA site on North Table Mountain, where DSES originally set up in 1991 to use two 60 foot antennas there, and to the Little Thompson Observatory at Berthoud, CO. (http://www.starkids.org). On Sunday evening and Monday DSES hosted a field trip visit at its Haswell site.

DSES members Bill Miller, Tony Bigbee, and Gary Agranat served as judges at the Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair in Colorado Springs on Saturday February 23, 2019.

Skip Crilly gave a presentation to the New Hampshire Astronomical Society in Concord, NH on February 8, 2019: Geographically-spaced Synchronized Signal Detection System - Radio Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is Fun.

The The Deep Space Exploration Society 2018 Annual Year End Report is now online.

Paul Berge wrote this memorial to Winston W. Scott Jr. “ Scotty”, an early Deep Space Exploration Society member who significantly helped the group develop from its beginnings. We only learned recently that Scotty had passed away.

Our 2019 Deep Space Exploration Society Membership Drive has started. Membership in DSES runs from the start of each calendar year. Dues continue to be $50 / year for voting members and $20 / year for non-voting members. Please renew your membership now. We welcome new members as well. Please read DSES Treasurer Myron Babcock’s membership message in our linked post, with more information about being a member, and on how to pay membership dues.

Website Update Notes

Our current DSES Information Brochure (in pdf) is now online.

We added a page for our K0PRT Ham Radio Certificates.

Active Experiments

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