This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For connectors, cables,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit pl -259
.com. And by ICOM, heard it, worked it, logged
it. Visit www .icomamerica .com slash amateur
for more information about ICOM radios. Here
we go, welcome to Hamtok Live Callin' let's talk,
Neil's your guy Hamtok Live, here we go on Hamtok
Live Hey, good evening, everyone. It's time for
HamTalk Live episode number 286. The HamSci Workshop
in Huntsville, Alabama, recorded live on Thursday,
January 20th, 2022. I'm your host, Neil Rapp,
WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this episode
of HamTalk Live. Tonight we're joined by Dr.
Nathaniel Vercell, W2NAF. And we'll take your
calls live in a few minutes. Uh, last week I
had to reschedule the show kind of a last last
minute notice here. Um, we had, uh, Keith KR
seven RK from the 10 10 international net scheduled
for that. And he was gracious enough to, uh,
reschedule that for next Thursday night. Uh,
but you can listen to episodes anytime at HamTalkLive
.com or on your favorite podcast app or on YouTube
and you can catch the rebroadcast of HamTalk
Live every Saturday afternoon at about 3 30 p
.m. Eastern over on WTWW that's 5085 on your
AM dial. So get your questions ready to go about
HamSci tonight if you're listening to us live
on Thursday night. you can give us a call later
on in the show let me go ahead and give you the
phone number so you'll have that ready to go
and that phone number is eight five nine nine
eight two seventy three seventy three again the
phone number and we'll give that out several
times tonight so you can have that ready to go
it's eight five nine nine eight You can also
tweet us, we'll be watching that. Tonight it's
at HamTalk Live on Twitter and if you're logged
into Spreaker you can type in the comments there.
So I'll be back with Nathaniel right after this
word from Icom America. right here on HamTalk
Live. Didn't get everything on your holiday wish
list? Now is the time to spice up your ham shack
with ICOM's new ID52A Handheld Now Shipping.
This radio is perfect for staying in or venturing
out and working your favorite bands this winter
season. The ID52A is now shipping. ICOM's newest
handheld amateur radio is a VHF -UHF dual bander
with D -Star and FM dual mode functions. This
radio supports conventional FM communications
and D -Star simplex repeater regional and worldwide
calls over the D -Star internet gateway. The
ID52A is the first handheld amateur radio with
a full color, 2 .3 inch waterfall display and
the ability to send photos over D -Star with
a connected Android device. Other features include
wideband receiver with a guaranteed range of
144 to 148 and 440 to 450 megahertz, VHF on both
sides, UHF on both sides, one on each side and
dual DV mode, integrated GPS, including grid
square location, a micro Your host, Neil Rapp,
would tell you a chemistry joke, but he probably
wouldn't get a reaction. Now, more HamTalk Live!
Welcome back to HamTalk Live tonight. Dr. Nathaniel
Frisell, W2NAF, joins us on the Orlando Amateur
Radio Club and Hamcation Zoom line. Nathaniel
is an assistant professor at the University of
Scranton in physics where he teaches digital
signal processing, fundamental physics, and electromagnetics.
He is the lead organizer of HamSci, a project
that explores how amateur radio can help us understand
more about the physics of the ionosphere. He
completed his PhD in electrical engineering in
2016 over at Virginia Tech, where he worked at
the super darn HF Radar Lab and was the 2019
Dayton Hamvention amateur of the year. And he's
been gracious enough to be with us several times
as things happen and You've got more happening
again, Nathaniel. I do, Neil. Thank you. So you've
got another workshop coming up. We'll talk about
that here in just a second. But first, for those
who may not be familiar with HamSci or forgot
what HamSci is all about, won't you just remind
everybody what it's about and how it all got
started? Sure, Neil. So HamSci is the Ham Radio
Science Citizen Investigation. And we're a group,
organization, and a collective of both amateur
radio operators and space scientists. And our
goal is to both make improved amateur radio and
further ionospheric science by working together.
And so we try to advance scientific research
and understanding through amateur radio activities.
We look to encourage the development of new technologies
to support this research and we look to provide
educational opportunities for the amateur community
and the general public. And so it got started
back when I was in graduate school around 2015.
I was at Virginia Tech and I saw some other students
who were working on, they were planning on studying
the 2017 solar eclipse. I saw that I said I bet
we can use amateur radio techniques to do this
as well because I had started working with some
reverse speaking network data and I said I bet
we can see the eclipse in the reverse speaking
network data and whispernet data and things like
that. So we created HamSci, we set the 2017 solar
eclipse QSO party and we're still going today.
Yeah and you've been able to to study some more
phenomenon, and that's pretty cool, and you can
do it all by radio, so that's even better. So
tell us about these workshops. You've had a few
of those already, and the next one is coming
up in March, and it's down in Rocket City, down
in Huntsville, Alabama, so what's coming up in
the next workshop? Oh, that's great. Yes, so
this is going to be the fifth annual HamSci workshop.
So far we've had two that have been in person.
In the last two years they've been virtual. And
this year we're going to try to make a hybrid
workshop. And it's going to be in person at the
U .S. Space and Rocket Center down in Huntsville,
Alabama. And we're going to have a theme called
the weather connection. So a connection of radio
propagation to both space weather and to terrestrial
weather. And we're also going to have some presence
from many of the NASA people down there too.
So we're actually working with many of the physicists
at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to help
make the workshop a success. I've been able to
meet a couple of those people and one took me
back to see their lunar observation or lunar
let's see lunar impact observatories is the name
of it and And the ham radio shack which which
which is pretty cool. By the way, if you haven't
been there Nathaniel, you got to check it out
and I I understand it's a former Hydrogen explosion
testing building Wow, it's built like it You
hide out in there, you're safe. There's some
cool stuff down there and and and you know, you'll
be able to find it really easily because just
look for the rocket garden You know look up at
the sky. You'll see this big rocket. That's where
they're at at the space and rocket center used
to take Classes there for field trips. It's it's
a very cool place and and yeah, there's a lot
of hams You know that work at NASA at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center And so I figured
there was a connection there and some overlap
of some of the things that they're doing. So
explain to people how they can attend. So it
sounds like you can either go down there or you
can be online. So explain how people can attend
the workshop this time. All right. So yes, there
are two options. So both in -person and virtual.
So either way, what you're going to do is you
go to HamSci .org, and there's a big banner right
on the front page there that says HamSci Workshop
2022. You can click on that. And that page will
give you all of the information you need. So
we don't quite have the registration open yet.
That will be opening very soon. But when that
opens, if you want to attend in person, you can
register through the website. If you're local,
you can just register. If you're from far away,
you can register and then you can book the hotel.
The hotel is right next to where the workshop
is going to be. So that's one way. And if you
want to attend virtually, we will have a place
online where you'll be able to on the website
as well where you'll be able to enter in your
email address and you'll be able to get a zoom
link and then on the day of the workshop you'll
be able to watch all the talks and there will
be some interaction that you'll be able to do
as well ask questions through the chat similar
to our virtual workshop from last year okay well
that's uh that's great you're offering both options
uh and then that's a safe way to make sure that
it It does go through because, you know, the
numbers are all crazy right now. Yeah, I have
to tell you, it is extremely stressful. It is.
It's extremely stressful trying to plan one of
these things these days. Yeah, and you know,
even even a month or two ago, it was like, well,
you know, we should be OK as long as we do a
few things and then it all breaks loose again.
So I think it will work out all right. I think
it will work out just fine, though. And I am
I am glad we're doing the hybrid option because,
you know, it will be I am so looking forward
to being in person and. Being able to say hello
to people and see people face to face and all
all of that But I do understand that there are
people who just can't make it You know for whatever
reason and so it is really nice that they'll
be able to watch and participate that way as
well Yeah, and I like that you're keeping the
participation part in that That's not always
easy to do when you've got both things going
on at once. So that'll That'll be a challenge,
I'm sure. That's great. Yeah, I've thought a
lot about how to do that. When we had the virtual
conference in the past, we've always had people
designated to watch the Zoom chat and ask the
questions. So I think what I'll do for the...
for this hybrid one is I'll actually have students
with me or other volunteers that will be designated
as Zoom monitors and they'll actually be sitting
in the workshop room watching the Zoom chat and
they'll be able to be the voice of the people
online and ask the questions for them. Yeah,
good plan. I remember taking a class or two online
before online classes were a thing and so they
just you know threw me up on the on the projector
screen and and Yeah, I would type to somebody
in the class and they would say Whatever it was
that but I needed to say and It worked it worked.
Well, so yeah sounds like a like a good plan
Well, in addition to having people there and
watch and participate in the workshop, you're
also calling out for presentations and papers
for consideration. So tell us a little bit about
that and the process of doing that. Right. So
one of the very important parts of HamSci is
to get the amateur radio community and the professional
science community talking to each other and trying
to share ideas. And one of the ways we do that
is we invite people from both sides, both communities,
to give presentations about research that they've
done. And so I know there are many amateurs out
there who do, say, their own propagation research
or their own research projects. Maybe even their
own engineering projects that could be used for
science. And if you have a presentation that
you are interested in giving at the HamSci workshop,
again, you can go to HamSci .org. You can click
on that big meeting banner right on the front
page there. on the meeting page there's a big
blue button that says Submit Abstract to HamSci
Workshop. You just click that button and then
you fill out the information. And if you can
do that by say like February 1st, then myself
and our program committee, I have a few people
that I'm working with, we will go through the
abstracts and we will figure out which ones will
be oral presentations, we'll figure out which
ones are going to uh... be maybe poster presentations
and we'll put the whole program together all
right sounds great so again and side dot org
and uh... you know if you've got something to
present wide but since then send in the abstract
and uh... they'll be intended and i should say
to forum you know for for really good presentations
arm there there is a certain amount of funding
available to actually bring presenters to come
in person to Alabama. So if your presentation
is selected by the committee, we might be able
to provide flights, hotels, and food for the
whole workshop. Oh, wow. So even more reason
to submit your abstract. You can go and not have
to pay the whole bill. Yeah, we got some NSF
funding National Science Foundation funding to
support that and so we are we are using that
funding to try and Bring in, you know presenters
from both the science side and from the amateur
side and and to support that dialogue Yeah, and
and those NFS NSF grants if you're not in the
science community like us Those NSF grants are
kind of like the lifeblood of research. Yeah,
they keep things going. They definitely do. So
that's great that you were able to score another
one to keep this going. All right. Well, we're
going to go ahead. Oh, yeah. And I don't know
if we want to talk about now, but we should also
say that we have some invited speakers, some
of whom are very well known. uh... more should
be well known to the amateur community so we
should talk about them as well yeah go right
ahead let's see let's hear who you have coming
already so we have we've got three invited speakers
i do have to say some of them will probably be
virtual i think some of them will be in person
but we'll have to see as we get closer but um...
we have thought dr tamitha scov who many of the
people in this audience i'm sure will be familiar
with She's WX6SWW and she's going to be talking
about the ionospheric impacts of space weather.
We also have Mr. Jim Bacon G3YLA and he is a
well -known retired meteorologist from the United
Kingdom. He was a recent recipient of the Radio
Society of Great Britain Les Barkley Memorial
Award and he's going to be talking about influences
of terrestrial weather on radio propagation in
the atmosphere. And finally, we have a keynote
speaker for the banquet on Friday night, Dr.
Chen Peng Yang. He's a professor up at the University
of Toronto, and he's actually a science historian.
And he wrote a book called Probing the Sky with
the Radio Waves from Wireless Technology to the
Development of Atmospheric Science. And it's
a very interesting book. I'm reading it right
now. And it really talks about how we learned
about ionospheric propagation and how that all
turned into this whole field of radio science
as we know it today. And he includes in his book
the important roles that the amateur radio community
has played in that development. This is very
fascinating. Oh, it sounds like some speakers
that definitely line up with the theme here.
So, um, sounds like some, some, some great stuff.
All right, well we're going to take a break here
for a minute or two. But when we come back, we'll
open up the phone lines and we'll check the tweets
and comments and all that stuff with Dr. Nathaniel
Frisell, W2NAF, right after this word from Tower
Electronics right here on HamTalk Live. Jerry,
what's up, man? I haven't seen you at SunBucks
in a while. I used to see you every morning getting
coffee. What's up? Well, I can't afford Sunbucks
five days a week anymore. I had to spend my money
on PL259s. You know, those antenna projects I've
been meaning to do. I had to do them before my
HOA finds out I have antennas. That's too bad,
Jerry. I miss seeing you and catching up over
coffee. You should get your PL259s from Tower
Electronics. They have great stuff. Jerry, you're
back! Oh, QRM Heterodyne Frappuccino. That's
a good choice. How's it going? Did you get all
those antennas up before the HOA police showed
up? Yeah, I got them all done. Thanks for telling
me about Tower Electronics. Now I can have my
coffee. I just saved a bunch of money on my PL259s
by switching to Tower Electronics. Don't get
caught without PL259s. Visit Tower Electronics
online at pl -259 .com or at a ham fest near
you. Or give them a call at 920 -435 -2973. And
be sure to pick up some power poles, adapters,
and cables too. Join the conversation. Give us
a call at 859 -982 -7373. Again, the number to
call is 859 -982 -7373. Or if you'd rather type
than talk, tweet us at HamTalk Live. Now, here's
Neil Rapp with more HamTalk Live. HamTalk Live
is on your side, with traffic and weather together
on the 8s. Well, maybe for this show that should
be space weather on the eight. Welcome back to
Hamtalk Live. And let's see, what do we have
here on the tower electronic schedule? We have
Fort Myers, Florida coming up this weekend, the
21st and 22nd, January 29th, Arcadia, Florida,
and then February 11th, 12th and 13th, Orlando,
Hamcation. Then they'll be in Dalton, Georgia
in Cave City, HamFest, but you can visit them
online at PL -259 .com. HamTalk Live is on the
air every Thursday night, 9 p .m. Eastern Time,
right here at HamTalkLive .com, and be sure to
check us out on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
And before we get back to Nathaniel, it's time
for the Joke of the Week. Now it's time for the
HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the Week, the
part of the show where Rick tells us a ham radio
joke. The HamTalk Live Ham Radio Joke of the
Week is brought to you by QRM Labs. Now here's
Rick Garrett in 9GSU with today's HamTalk Live
Joke of the Week. My wife said I was spending
far too much time inside on the radios and wanted
me to take up a new hobby. So she thought of
astronomy and bought me a telescope. I told her
I'd look into it. Because they make up everything
so All right, well yeah, it's time for your call
So get us out of this if you have a question
for Nathaniel W to NAF give us a call at eight
five nine nine eight two seventy three seventy
three again call right now eight five nine nine
eight two seventy three seventy three you can
also tweet us at ham talk live and again if you're
uh... logged into speaker you can type in the
comments uh... but if you're listening to us
on w t w w or on the podcast edition uh... you
won't be able to reach us We're doing this live
on Thursday night. So let's see, we were just
talking about, you know, the lifeblood of science,
the National Science Foundation grants. Let's
talk a little bit about the grant that you had
for the workshop. And then, of course, you got
a big one for your for your research. Yeah, thanks.
So, yeah, we got almost a $50 ,000 grant for
the Hamside Workshop and that all goes towards
supporting the facilities and helps to bring
in speakers. So, as I said, when we get all the
abstracts and we look at those and we try to
pick out some of the best abstracts and we are
able to use that funding to... Ask those people
to actually come in person and present at the
hams I workshop and it's worked out really great
for For the past few years And let's let's talk
a little bit about your ongoing research here
that you know, because this all ties into Your
normal research day, so talk a little bit about
that one, too Right. So we've got I have a number
of different research projects going on The one
that we've been doing at HamSci for a couple
of years now is the Personal Space Weather Station.
And that's a project where we're actually designing
new instrumentation to measure things that happen
out in space and how it affects the atmosphere.
And that project itself has a number of different
sub -projects to it. So we have one part of the
project where we're having the TAPR organization
develop a new software -defined radio that meets
certain science, certain specifications and requirements
that are needed for science. We have the Case
Western Group. They're developing what's a low
-cost version of the Personal Space Weather Station,
where they call that the GRAPE. And its job is
just to monitor WWV and CHU. But it doesn't monitor
those stations the way you wouldn't listen to
them with a normal radio, it's actually looking
for Doppler shifts in the carrier frequency.
We're able to relate that back to changes in
the ionosphere. Then another Tapper project in
the New Jersey Institute of Technology project
is developing a ground magnetometer. So measuring
the Earth's magnetic field is important for radio
science as well because those changes in the
earth's magnetic field, they come about because
there are currents flowing overhead in the ionosphere.
And many of your listeners have probably heard
of the KP index. Well, that KP index is actually
a measurement made from ground magnetometers.
So that's why we have that in the personal space
weather station. And then my friend Jonathan
Rizzo, KC3. EEY, he wants to do a VLF receiver,
very low frequency, our receiver. So we're putting
that into the personal space weather station
as well now too. So we're continuing to work
on that development. We have a number of prototypes
of the different instruments running now that
people have built and they're starting to collect
data. And so actually at the Hampstead Workshop,
one of the purposes of the Hampstead Workshop
is to serve as a team meeting. Or the people
who do develop the personal space weather station
So we can expect to see a lot of personal space
weather station presentations at the hamsite
workshop Wow, that sounds sounds really cool
If you have a question, give us a call right
now eight five nine nine eight two seventy three
seventy three or tweet us at ham talk live and
you've Talked about the solar eclipse thing and
we've got another one of those coming up here,
you know locally soon And you've had the frequency
measurement festival you were on with one of
the students from Case Western Reserve Not long
ago talking about that. So have you have you
seen anything out of that yet? And and and what
are the kinds of things that you're you're? observing
with this frequency measurement festival idea?
Well, one of the big things we see with the frequency
measurement festival is we see these traveling
ionospheric disturbances all the time. And these
are like wave -like structures, wave -like variations
in the Doppler data. And we can pretty much see
them in almost all the data that we get. So we're
trying to do that sort of analysis right now.
Now what's interesting about traveling asterisk
disturbances, why would an amateur radio operator
care? Well, if you're talking on HF radio and
you experience QSB, you experience fading. So
you're talking to someone, they're strong for
like 15 minutes and then they fade out for another
15 minutes and they come back. That could be
a traveling atmospheric disturbance overhead.
So we can see that in the GRAPE data. These traveling
atmospheric disturbances, we see them not only
in the GRAPE data, that personal space weather
station data, but you can also see them in the
reverse speaking network and WhisperNet PSK reporter
data too. You can see these variations in how
far the communications are able to go on the
HF bands as a function of time. And so I've actually
spent a lot of my time analyzing that data recently
as well. I have a couple other, both NSF and
NASA grants to look at that. And I just, I've
been showing a reverse speaking network PSK reporter
whispernet event of that at the conferences over
the past year or so. And I finally just got that
written up into a manuscript that I submitted
out for publication. So hopefully that will go
through the peer review process soon and we'll
see some more things from that too. Yeah, that'd
be great to have another article out there talking
about ham radio and physics. I'm really impressed
with the people that you've invited to come to
Huntsville this year because there's some serious
science going on there with those people. Just
sounds like a really great event so Thank you
best best of luck with it and on all the research
and we're just so thankful that you're doing
that and making the connection between science
and ham radio Nathaniel any any other information
you want to Give to our listeners here before
we take off tonight Well, I just would like to
invite everyone to participate. We have people
of all different levels. Come join us, people
who are very new to ham radio and science, to
people who have lots of experience. It's really
fun to watch everyone talk together and listen
to each other and learn from each other. I'm
looking forward to meeting everyone and I hope
that everyone can come join. All right. Well,
thanks so much for taking your time to be on
the program tonight. As always, we'll be talking
to you about future projects and hope you can
come back and tell us all about them. I would
be glad to, Neil. Thank you. All right. That's
Nathaniel Frisell, W2NAF from the University
of Scranton. And don't forget the HamSci workshop
coming up in Huntsville in March. Go to HamSci
.org. And you can read all about it. And if you've
got something to share, make sure you fill out
that abstract form on there. And maybe you'll
get some travel assistance there too. So you
can go. All right. Well, that's a wrap for this
week's edition of ham talk live I'd like to thank
my guest again. Dr. Nathaniel for cell w2naf
and everybody out there in cyberspace for listening
and Invite you back next Thursday night at 9
p .m. Eastern time when Keith Schlottman kr7rk
Will be here to talk about the 1010 international
net and what's happening on 10 meters? And for
a list of all of our upcoming guests, just go
to HamTalkLive .com. So for now, this is Neil
Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7 -3, 7 -5, and may the
good DX be yours. Well you came right back to
my secure call Your readability five and strength
nine You never once mentioned your weather at
all And I didn't mention mine We talked and talked
for hours and hours I completely forgot you're
a ham I don't know your power or the height of
your tower Frankly I don't give a damn It's 73
to you and your family I'll be seeing you further
down the line It's 73 to you and your