News Articles

Dozens of Grape Personal Space Weather Stations are now on the air, and the network is growing on a regular basis.  In the last week, stations in Cleveland, OH and Jacksonville, FL were added to the Grape network.  They were Node numbers 63 and 64, respectively.  You can learn more about the Grape 1, including all of the details needed to build, operate and contribute data to the HamSCI PSWS Grape Server here.  The full Grape story, with links to the Grape 1 and the  up and coming Grape 2 are here on the HamSCI site.

Multiple members of the HamSCI Community contributed content to the new book Here to There: Radio Wave Propagation, recently published by the American Radio Relay League.  

Book chapters include the following:  Fundamentals of Radio Wave Propagation, The Sun and Solar Activity, Sky-Wave, or Ionospheric, Propagation, VHF and UHF Non-ionospheric Propagation, Propagation Predictions for HF Operation, VHF and UHF Mobile Propagation and Amateur Radio and Ionospheric Science.

Dr. Kristina Collins, KD8OXT, is the lead author on a new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Earth System Science Data entitled Crowdsourced Doppler measurements of time standard stations demonstrating ionospheric variability. The Grape Personal Space Weather Station is a low-cost, high frequency (HF) receiver designed to make precision measurements of signals received from frequency standards stations such as WWV, WWVH, and CHU. Because these standards stations transmit carriers with atomic-clock grade frequency stability, and the Grape receiver achieves similar frequency stability through the use of a GNSS Disciplined Oscillator, variations in the received signal can be attributed to changes in the ionosphere. The new paper demonstrates this in multiple ways, including showing changes in Doppler frequency due to the dawn and dusk terminators, seasonal variations, wave signatures with Medium Scale Traveling Ionospheric Disturbance periods, and the ionospheric response to solar flares. The paper also explains how to access Grape data and the open-source software used to conduct the analysis. The co-author team consists of professionals, students, and HamSCI volunteers, including Kristina Collins KD8OXT, John Gibbons N8OBJ, Nathaniel Frissell W2NAF, Aidan Montare KB3UMD, David Kazdan AD8Y, Darren Kalmbach KC0ZIE, David Swartz W0DAS, Robert Benedict KD8CGH, Veronica Romanek KD2UHN, Rachel Boedicker AC8XY, William Liles NQ6Z, William Engelke AB4EJ, David G. McGaw N1HAC, James Farmer K4BSE, Gary Mikitin AF8A, Joseph Hobart W7LUX, George Kavanagh KB1HFT, and Shibaji Chakraborty KN4BMT. The Grape receivers are the focus of an NSF-funded experiment to study the upcoming 2023 annular and 2024 total solar eclipses. More information on building your own Grape receiver is available at hamsci.org/grape.

HamSCI will play a major role at the 2023 Dayton Hamvention, to be be held in Xenia, Ohio May 19-21, 2023, at the Greene County Fairgrounds.  It is the world's largest ham radio gathering, having over 30,000 attendees in 2022. The Hamvention is an extremely important event for engaging with the amateur radio community, sharing ideas, developing collaborations, and sharing scientific results. The Hamvention 2023 theme is Innovation!, an excellent fit for HamSCI's goals.  HamSCI will be hosting Booth 5008 in the Hertz Building, giving presentations in the ARISS/YOTA area, and hosting the HamSCI Forum.  Support for the 2023 HamSCI Hamvention activities comes from The University of Scranton, the Yasme Foundation, TAPR, the National Science Foundation, NASA, and volunteers like you.