Every year the DSES holds an open house public event, where we provide tours of the facility and demonstrate what radio astronomy and Amateur radio are all about. This year, on September 16 we demonstrated EME (Earth Moon Earth) or moon bounce communication allowing folks to bounce their voice or radio signal off the moon using our 60 Ft radio dish antenna. This is a rare opportunity and thrill for children and adults alike, to hear their voice echo off the moon, traveling about 240,000 miles to the moon and back at the speed of light,186,000 miles per second. The echo returns in about two and a half seconds. Only a few private stations in the world can accomplish this because it takes a very large antenna and powerful transmitter for voice transmission to echo off the moon. In addition to hearing our own echoes, the EME station was able to contact other stations in Canada, Italy, England, and Germany as well as many other ham operators in the USA. We also gave tours of the new building and underground facilities and did solar and nighttime observations with optical telescopes. An astronomy presentation on Pulsars was held during the event. Throughout the day, we got a lot of great questions from the public about the site, and what we do there. There were about 75 people who attended the event.
The 60 Ft Diameter Radio Astronomy Dish Antenna stands 55 feet tall, weighs over 65 tons and is made of aluminum and steel. It can point in any direction at any elevation so is full hemispherical. The dish is so well balanced that it only takes 3HP motors to drive it from horizon to horizon in just a few minutes. The Facility and dish were built around 1959 and used to study high speed microwave communication at great distances in support of our northern defenses or DEW Line. In about 1973, when Satellite and fiberoptic communications took over, the facility was put up for government auction and sat unused for about 40 years. After some time, Paul Plishner, a prominent radio and microwave contractor, purchased the facility donated it to the DSES who have been working diligently to restore it since about 2009. The DSES has repurposed the dish and facility for Amateur Radio Astronomy and Ham Radio. So far, we have detected 24 Pulsars, mapped the Hydrogen radio Emissions of Milky Way Galaxy and done countless radio experiments. The facility is completing a new building as an operations and educational facility and has many new projects on the horizon.
When operating EME most people were awestruck, pondering the distance and speed. The children thought that it was really cool. As we explained the other things that we do, we dispelled some misunderstandings and enlightened visitors about our Kiowa County operation.
According to the FCC there are about 43 Ham Radio Operators in Kiowa County and many more in the surrounding counties. Several hams from those counties showed up for the event but we had members from the Front Range and as far away as Oregon and Arizona come in to help with the event. Almost everyone who wanted to was able to be a guest operator for the EME and many were given a tour and demonstration of the general-purpose ham radio station at the facility. During the open house day, many ham radio stations across the USA were contacted from our ham radio station K0PRT.
DSES holds this open house only once per year. However, the public can stop by whenever there is an official work party on site. The Deep Space Exploration Society site is open to scheduled visits from educational groups or other social groups wishing a tour and presentation on Radio Astronomy. Also, the general public can join the Deep Space Exploration Society by signing up for membership on our website at https://dses.science/ for a small membership fee, entitling them to all of our meetings and events onsite.
The Pork BBQ catered by the Michelle Nelson, the mayor of Haswell and her family, was definitely a hit with everyone. We asked for a donation to support the BBQ and raise money for the Haswell Community Center and 4H club.
Duncan WE7L hears his voice bounced off the moon:
Photo Credits: Marc Slover, Bill Thomson, Roger Oaky, Bill Miller and Bill Thomas
Bill WT0DX represented DSES at three recent ham radio events: The CSVHF Conference, the Rocky Mountain Division Convention and the Denver Radio Club Hamfest. In each case, a posterboard display was set up, site videos were displayed, and club brochures were handed out. The upcoming Open House was also promoted.
CSVHF Conference
The annual CSVHF conference was held July 27-30 in Little Rock, AR. There were about 150 participants. The posterboard display was set up in the main meeting room and the Friday night swap room. In addition to talking about the club, several folks said they were interested in attending the Open House.
Rocky Mountain Division Convention
The Rocky Mountain Division Convention was held August 11-13 in Albuquerque, NM. They provided a free table for clubs in the swap meet area. There were about 400 attendees, and many interesting conversations. Unfortunately, many of the folks thought that the DSES site was too far away for an Open House visit.
Bill also had an opportunity to discuss DSES with David Minster NA2AA the CEO of ARRL. He was unaware of the club but found it very interesting.
Denver Radio Club Hamfest
The Denver Radio Club Hamfest was held on Sunday August 27th at the Adams County Fairgrounds. This is a well-attended hamfest and we had many good conversations about the club, with quite a bit of interest in the Open House. Also, Paul NO0T managed to secure a great donation to the club of several HF Yagi antennas.
DSES President Bill Miller gave a Virtual Open Housepresentation about DSES to the Front Range 6 Meter Groupon February 10, 2021.
The presentation was also given live by ZOOM to the Arctic Amateur Radio Club Monthly Meeting on March 12th, The Utah DX Association on March 17th, and The Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club on March 18th.
Cool Science Festival Presentation on Saturday October 11, 2020
Rich Russel made an online presentation at the Cool Science Festival. The presentation covered the science of radio astronomy and the accomplishments of the Deep Space Exploration Society. The presentation was streamed live on Facebook and Youtube. You can watch the presentation here:
Astronomer Rich Russel from the Deep Space Exploration Society describes how he uses the 60-foot Plishner radio astronomy dish antenna 90 miles southwest of Colorado Springs to detect pulsars in deep space.This live-stream presentation was part of our virtual Cool Science Carnival Day for kids, the main event of the 2020 Colorado Springs Cool Science Festival. You can find more information at:https://www.coolscience.org/carnivalday.html
This 8-day regional event, designed to ignite wonder and inspire curiosity about the world around us, attracts between 10,000 and 20,000 attendees each year. For more information about the Cool Science Festival go to:
Bill Miller, Tony Bigbee, and I (Gary Agranat) served last month as judges at the 2020 Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair. The Fair was held at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs on Saturday February 22nd. Tony served as a general judge, representing the Fair. Bill and I served as special judges representing our radio telescope group, the Deep Space Exploration Society. The Fair is there to encourage students in grades 6 through 12 to explore and develop their interests in science and engineering. The Pikes Peak Regional Fair supports students from Elbert, El Paso, Park, and Teller County counties, whether they are in a school or home schooled.
About $8000 in prizes and special awards are given each year from the Fair and special groups like ours. The Fair prizes are divided into subject area categories, like physical sciences, plant sciences, environment, biomedicine, chemistry, and energy/transportation. There are overall Grand Prizes, and prizes in each of the High School and Junior High School Divisions. Students are also awarded invitations to the State Science Fair.
DSES was one of 43 organizations that sponsored special prizes. This year DSES sponsored 4 awards: 1st prizes and honorable mention awards, for both the Senior and Junior High School student categories. Our 1st prizes included an award of $50. This is our second year judging and sponsoring prizes.
DSES this year also supported a high school student, Xander Duvall, who is interested in astronomy and physics.
The DSES Judging and Prizes
Only about 60 students entered this year’s Science Fair, compared to about a hundred last year. Nonetheless, in our opinions, the projects were generally good and well-motivated. One could see the students’ hearts were in it. A number of projects were motivated with real concern for society. Many of the solutions were often quite innovative and truly pushing what had been done before. Even when the projects were not so far reaching, one could tell the students were trying things and learning from their experiences.
Bill and I decided on a 4-part grading system for judging. We wanted to keep this simple, straight forward and manageable, and meaningful. For each student we interviewed, we assigned a grade of 1 to 5 in each of these major areas:
How well they framed their problem
The quality of their data, which included quality of their testing and how they conducted their experiments.
The quality of their analysis, which included how thorough their work was and how well they were able to explain it.
The value added from their work: the general impact to society and science or engineering, and to their own development. A sub category of #4 included, if possible, the value added to the subject areas relevant to DSES work: i.e., astronomy, especially radio astronomy, and any of the engineering, computer, and science areas that enable that work, like data analysis and experimenting with antennas. Those topics are not necessarily easy to get into, and so we wanted to encourage and help young people get exposure to those topics.
We then used our grades as guides to holistically assess all of the students afterwards. In 5 to 10 minutes of interviewing each student, and looking at their work and presentations, it is a challenge to get an objective view of the full work. The quieter time afterwards gave us time to reflect more fully, and let impressions that were working in the background contribute and give us a fuller answer.
Our goal was to support the young people in developing their quality in all 4 of those areas. I think Bill and I were satisfied with the awards we decided on. There were many excellent projects and several of those were outstanding. We were special judges in our own defined special category. We couldn’t award to everyone that we thought worthy. But in our decisions, we indicated the strengths and qualities we wanted the young people to continue to develop for themselves. We interviewed 7 students in the Junior High School Division and 7 students in the Senior High School Division. We were impressed with and proud of all of the students we interviewed.
We decided on these awards:
Junior Outstanding: Naomi Kruse (6th grade) “I speak for the trees: Tree-ring analysis of pinus ponderosa to learn local climate history” . Naomi took slices from about 30 trees that were damaged in the Black Forest fire a few years ago. She systematically analyzed the tree rings and was able to correlate climate change well back into the 19th century.
Junior Honorable Mention: Sara Wilson (8th grade) “Mind your message”. Sara successfully developed a smart garage door opening system that can be operated simply with a home computer and not requiring a smart phone.
Senior Outstanding: Kathryn Kummel (11th grade) “Investigating the urban heat island phenomenon through modeling, satellite data, and on-site measurements”. Kathryn did a multi-faceted study. She examined LANDSAT data of Colorado Springs to get a broad view. She looked at mathematical modeling of temperature and heat response of different surfaces. She checked with measurements of her own. And she made sample roof surfaces to test which would best mitigate heat generation in an urban environment.
Senior Honorable Mention: Xander Duvall (9th grade) “Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the Milky Way galactic plane”.
Xander was the student we supported. He had come to us just earlier this year. We discussed with him his interests and what we were doing. We only had enough time to provide him with some data, to try to analyze and understand. The data we gave him was from a drift scan with our 60-foot dish of the 21 cm HI hydrogen spectral signal, scanning across the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Xander was able to research the background and develop a sharp presentation with some good explanations and illustrations. We hope Xander will continue to explore and develop his experience with astronomy research. He got a good start, and there is potential for lots of good solid work. Meanwhile, Xander earned several other awards at the Fair: the NASA EARTH System Science Award, the Northrop Grumman Special Awards in Science and Engineering (Sr.Div.), and the Senior Division People’s Choice (which is a popular vote by everyone who attends the Fair).
Additional DSES members helped Xander, including Rich Russel in supporting him with the observational data.
Xander Duvall, a 9th grade student at the Thomas MacLaren School, with his presentation ‘‘Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the MilkyWay galactic plane’’. With Gary Agranat and Bill Miller at the Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair.
These are the students we interviewed.
JA3) Ezra Voth [03:58] Measuring water flow through specific placements of rocks on varying inclinations to reduce soil attrition.
JA4) Naomi Kruse [03:49] I speak for the trees: Tree-ring analysis of pinus ponderosa to learn local climate history
JC1) Ava Connelly [01:48] ‘‘Electricity free emergency’’
JD1) Sara Wilson [06:06] ‘‘Mind your message’’
JD3) Aditya Gonella [06:50] :‘‘A hiker’s third eye’’
JD5) Shrey Rohilla [02:50] ‘‘Windmill wonders’’
JD7) Phoenix Doyle [02:42] ‘‘Electromagnetism’’
SA6) Hudson Kruse [06:15] ‘‘Searching for blunders: Discovering the relative factors which influence faulty thought process in chess”
SB5) Jesus Gil [01:21] ‘‘Durability of casein plastic’’
SD1) Steven Lewis [02:20] ‘‘Cyber security engineering for aircraft’’ (Using AI machine learning to counter vulnerability of aircraft ADS-B)
SD2) Gryphon Patlin & Zakery Snider [06:32] ‘‘A device to digitally assist and enhance perception’’
SD4) Xander Duvall [03:17] ‘‘Analysis of neutral hydrogen radio emissions in the Milky Way galactic plane’’
SD5) Axton Hiltion [00:30] ‘‘Mitigating the cost of expensive solar repair by shielding environmental effects’’
SE6) Kathryn Kummel [02:59] ‘‘Investigating the urban heat island phenomenon through modeling, satellite data, and on-site measurements’’
In the near future, Bill and I plan to meet over coffee and assess our lessons learned. We’ll think about how we did, our criteria, and what we want to do going forward for the next science fairs, for supporting the young people in developing their work, and in judging at the fairs.
The Science Fair has a website. Pikes Peak Regional Science Fair. There you can learn more details about the Fair and the awards. They also have a nicely done video that highlights the students with their presentations and the experience of participating in the Fair. https://vimeo.com/393350748 The times in brackets in our above list of the students we interviewed are when they appear with their presentations in the video.
This is 8th grade student Ava Connelly, one of the students we interviewed. Her project was to test the suitability and effectiveness of several heat sources that could provide a small heated space for a baby, independent of the power grid during emergencies. Or these could be used in developing countries. She cited data that the risk of Sudden Infant Death Disease is greater if the baby is not kept at safe temperature. Her result was that of the devices she tested, the USB hand warmer would work best (the power could come from a hand cranked USB power generator).
By Gary Agranat. Participating were Bill Miller and Gary Agranat.
Bill Miller at the DSES table at the Haswell Bazaar.
Bill Miller and Gary Agranat represented the Deep Space Exploration Society at the 2019 Haswell Bazaar last Saturday, October 26th. The bazaar is held at the town’s community center, which is their former elementary school. At the bazaar are crafts, foods, and specialized products sold by local residents. Our antenna site is located just a few miles from the community center. The fair is also an opportunity for the local residents to socialize. And for us in DSES, it is a chance for us to socialize with them too.
Bill Miller created two new display panels for the event. These present an illustrated overview of our work and accomplishments to date. The panels are organized into four topics: infrastructure work, our radio astronomy science, ham radio, and outreach.
Gary brought a laptop which presented a running slide show of about 180 photos of our activities from the past year.
The Haswell Bazaar featured local art & crafts and foods, cosmetics and health items, and Fuller Brush items. The Kiowa County Library had a table next to us as well. Michelle Nelson, the Mayor of the town, cooked the lunch for the bazaar. The main entre was a choice of home cooked chili or soup. Several of her children assisted. Various cakes were served for desert.
The Haswell Bazaar was held at the town’s community center, which is their former elementary school.The community center in Haswell.
The bazaar concluded by 3 PM. The bazaar was a good opportunity for us to participate in the community activities, to show to the community what we do, and to continue to foster our good relationships with each other.
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During the past year, the local railroad line that runs east-west through town had restoration work begun. The line had been abandoned several decades ago. We learned that the original Haswell railroad depot building is still in town. We were told where it is, and we went to look. We were told that if passenger rail service was restored, there was interest to restore this depot, and bring it back to the rail line and utilize it again. It is the only surviving railroad depot building from the original Missouri Pacific Railroad.
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After the bazaar was finished, we stopped at our Plishner antenna site. There we looked at the progress of the ham radio tower. And Gary retrieved the ham radio log data from the most recent contacts. Steve Plock made our first contacts with the Yagi antenna on the new tower last Friday. He contacted AG5Z in Mississippi on the 20 meter band, and 9Y4D in Trinidad on the 15 meter band.
Our new 50-foot ham radio tower at the Plishner radio astronomy site. At the top of the tower is a 3-element triband HF Yagi antenna mounted on a rotator and shaft. Above the Yagi is a VHF vertical antenna for the site’s local talk-in radio system.In addition to the HF Yagi and VHF vertical antennas at the top, the tower supports our dipole wire antennas for HF 80 and 160 meter ham radio bands, and a delta loop wire antenna for the 6 meter band.The tower is securely supported by guy cables.On Friday Ed Corn and Steve Plock added the installation of this messenger cable, to keep the coax feed cables above ground and organized.
4th Annual Deep Space Exploration Society Open House – Public Invited
Saturday August 10, 2019, starting at 10 AM, at the Plishner Radio Telescope Site, located on Kiowa County Road 20, 5 miles south of Haswell, CO.
Tours and educational programs will be offered during the afternoon. Radio Astronomy projects will be demonstrated, including galactic spectral Hydrogen Line and Pulsar detection with our 60-foot antenna dish, and Jupiter-Io radio astronomy (Radio Jove), Meteor detection, and the IBT (Itty Bitty Radio Telescope). Optical Astronomy and Ham Radio operating will be demonstrated.
Solar Optical Telescopes will be available to view the sun and its sunspots. Other optical telescopes will be available during the evening hours. The annual Perseid meteor shower starts on the Aug. 10th weekend. Meteors may be seen at night, sky conditions permitting.
Food will be served for lunch and dinner. Ice water and lemonade will be available for all throughout the day.
Overnight RV and tent camping will be permitted. Please let DSES know what type of RV/trailer you will come in. A limited number of 20 amp electrical hook ups should be available. A $10/night donation will be asked for electrical connections. Hotel rooms may be available at the Cobblestone Inn & Suites in Eads, CO, about a half hour drive away.
For more information, please contact us at our email address: information (a)dses(dot)science or destm(a)gmail(dot)com.
Please read our Review of our annual Open House at the Plishner Radio Telescope site in Haswell, in August 2018. We host our Open House each year during the Perseid Meteor Shower. The link will open our review report as a PDF file. It was an enjoyable weekend, with many science and social activities. A significant highlight is our ability to now make observations with the 60-foot antenna. With many photos.
