HamSCI Workshop 2020 Videos Available

Video recordings of the third annual HamSCI Workshop are now available through the Ham Radio 2.0 YouTube Channel. The 2020 HamSCI Workshop for amateur radio operators and professional scientists was held Friday and Saturday, March 20-21, 2020, virtually on Zoom at The University of Scranton. The theme of the workshop was “The Auroral Connection,” and included addresses by guest speakers, poster presentations, and demonstrations of relevant instrumentation and software.

The workshop served as a team meeting for the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station project, which is a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project awarded to University of Scranton physics and electrical engineering professor Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF. The project seeks to harness the power of a network of licensed amateur radio operators to better understand and measure the effects of weather in the upper levels of Earth’s atmosphere, as well as provide new tools to help amateurs understand radio propagation and improve operating. Through the grant, Dr. Frissell, a space physicist, will lead a collaborative team that will develop modular, multi-instrument, ground-based space science observation equipment and data collection and analysis software. The PSWS is led by The Univeristy of Scranton, and includes participation from TAPR, Case Western Reserve University/W8EDU, the University of Alabama, the New Jersey Institute of Technology CSTR, MIT Haystack Observatory, Dartmouth College, and the ham radio community at large.

Invited speakers at the workshop included Elizabeth MacDonald, Ph.D., the NASA researcher that founded and leads the Aurorasaurus project. Dr. MacDonald discussed fundamentals of auroral physics, its optical signatures, and the Aurorasaurus citizen science project. James LaBelle, Ph.D., professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth University and auroral radio physicist, discussed radio signatures of the aurora, remote sensing using active and passive techniques, and ways the amateur radio/HamSCI community could contribute. David Hallidy, K2DH, a retired microwave engineer who is also a well-known amateur radio operator for his work in auroral mode propagation, discussed his practical experiences of using the aurora for radio communication purposes. Tim Duffy, K3LR, well-known contester and chief executive officer and general manager at DX Engineering gave keynote remarks entitled "Let’s Push the Exploration of the Ionosphere to The Next Level".