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-4373 or go to hamstation .com. Hey, good evening,
everyone. It's HamTalk Live. This is episode
number 74, The Solar Eclipse QSO Party, recorded
live on Thursday, July 27th, 2017. I'm your host,
Neil Rapp, WB9 VPG. Thanks for tuning in to this
episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight, we're joined
by Sam Rose, KC2LRC. And we'll be talking about
the Solar Eclipse QSO party and we'll fill you
in a little more here in a minute. But we'll
also have another guest with us this evening.
W2NAF will be here to take your questions in
just a little bit. And last week was an abbreviated
show. My father passed away and did a little
tribute to him and didn't schedule anybody to
be on the show last week. But if you ever miss
a show, all you have to do is go to HamTalkLive
.com. They're all there. You can play them anytime
you want. You can also catch our podcast edition
over on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio,
Google Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud, and a bunch
of others. And also on YouTube. So We're going
to be talking about this QSO party for the solar
eclipse tonight. And eclipse mania is here. So
we'll be talking about that. So get your questions
ready to go for that. And we're going to have
a recorded interview tonight due to some time
constraints. But we will take your questions
after that and that telephone number. for calling
in once we get to that point will be 812 -NET
-HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. You can also
Skype us. Just search for HamTalk Live on Skype
and you will find us there. And if you're too
shy to call us... First of all don't be so shy,
but you can tweet us at ham talk live as well
So as I was mentioning Sam was supposed to be
home yesterday From a trip to Europe, but he
ended up in England for an extra week So we recorded
the interview yesterday But we'll play that for
you and then after the interview The guy who's
doing all this scientific study, Dr. Nathaniel
Frizzle, W2NAF, will be here to take your questions
in Sam's place. So I'll be back with Sam right
after this word from the ham station right here
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The grass may be greener on the other side, but
at least we don't have to mow it. You're listening
to HamTalk Live with Neil Rapp. That phone number
is 800 -729 -4373 or they're online just go to
hamstation .com. Tell them I sent you from HamTalk
Live and be sure to listen to the show every
Thursday night at 9 p .m. Eastern Time right
here hamtalklive .com and again if you missed
the show you can catch it over on our website
or on the podcast feed. So again tonight Sam
is is sleeping right now or at least we hope
he is because of the time difference so we recorded
this and so we'll play that pre -recorded part
and I will talk with Nathaniel while you're listening
to that and then we'll take a break and come
back and then we'll take your questions so here's
the interview with Sam Rose KC2 LRC Sam Rose
KC2 LRC is from Syracuse, New York and Sam was
first licensed in June 2003 at the age of 13.
He studied electrical engineering at Clarkson
University where he was president of Clarkson's
radio club K2 Charlie Charlie from 2010 through
2012 and he now works with C -Speed in Liverpool,
New York doing engineering and data performance
analysis work on the C -Speed LightWave Radar,
a next generation S -band air traffic surveillance
radar. Sam is an avid contestor, works satellites,
public service events, works IRLP, restores radios
and enjoys special events such as balloon launches,
ISS retransmissions and weird contests. And since
he started ham radio at a young age, he's particularly
interested in introducing ham radio to youth
and young adults. But tonight, he's here to talk.
about the upcoming solar eclipse, QSO party.
So Sam, welcome to ham talk live all the way
from England. Hey, good evening, Neil. And I
really mean evening here in England. Good to
be back. Yeah, we or I mentioned earlier, we
pre recorded this because you We're supposed
to be home and it didn't quite work that way,
I guess. You're still over across the pond. Yeah,
I'm across the pond because I didn't quite figure
out my way through London in time to get to Gatwick
back for a flight. So here I am still touring
Europe. Well, I would say I feel sorry for you,
but I'm not so sure that I do, but not enjoying
it. What's the worst that can happen? Go up and
drink scotch in Edinburgh? In Scotland? Yeah,
there you go. You talk to me about the, uh, the
solar eclipse QSO party and, and eclipse mania
I've noticed has been in full force lately. I
was listening to broadcast radio on Monday and
the guy on there was talking about, uh, Oh yeah.
The solar eclipse is coming up soon. I just now
heard about this and I'm just like, Okay. I've
been hearing about it for months. I've heard
friends saying, okay, I talked to this, this
church down in, in Kentucky and they've got this
parking lot and we've got a spot reserved in
this parking lot. You know, all making all these
trips and stuff, you know, people coming in,
uh, to get the best look at this. And I've been
hearing about it for months and the rest of the
world is now just kind of finding out about it.
So. Uh, so you've got this QSO party coming up
that's taking place for the eclipse. So tell
us about what's going to take place and what's
going on with the QSO party. Well, so a little
background on this, uh, Nathaniel W2NAF, uh,
who has a PhD in, uh, some things relating to
ionospheric research. He has been using HF radar
systems usually called super darn. to gather
data to study the scientific phenomena that cause
HF propagation that we all love as ham radio
operators. Well, in the midst of his research,
he noticed that crowdsourced data is particularly
valuable. And what we mean by crowdsourced data
here is that particularly the reverse beacon
network, but maybe some other things like Spotting
clusters and stuff you can get good ideas based
on reverse call sign lookups and stuff like this
on Where the bands are open to at a given moment?
Just based on who's on the air and who the reverse
beacon network is currently detecting so Reverse
beacon network if you haven't heard of this is
a system that uses wideband software to find
radio skimmers to actively receive whoever's
on the air and automatically send reports to
a network server where they're collected. Well,
Reverse Beacon Network also allows you to download
the data throughout I think its entire operational
history, and he's been using this as a tool to
study ionospheric phenomena. Not often though
does the ionospheric researcher get to have God
put his thumb between the Earth and the Sun by
having a solar eclipse. So when this happens,
we've got to take full advantage of it and really
try to collect the most thorough data that we
can using whatever methods are available. So
to get a lot of people on the air during this,
we've called a contest. And the details of this
are on hamsci .org. But the whole idea is to
get more people on the air, to put a lot of signals
out there, to create more points of data, and
to create a more thorough view of what happens
during a solar eclipse, when maybe we're going
to expect some strange phenomena. You know, maybe
80 meters is going to open during the day. Will
this happen? We don't know. But during a solar
eclipse a few years ago in Europe, some stations
using SDR receivers observed an AM opening at
a time that you normally wouldn't expect during
the day. So that's what we're going to be keeping
an eye on. But in order to do this, we need to
have a lot of participants so that we get a lot
of signals on the air, operate a lot of reverse
beacon network skimmers and collect the best
data that we can. Okay. So what's the, if you're
just going to get on the air and we'll talk a
little bit more about maybe. doing some of the
reverse beacon network stuff and all that here
in a minute. But if you're just going to get
on the air and just work the QSO party, what's
the exchange and what do people need to know
just if they just decide to just jump on the
air and talk? So this is a Q so party that's
gonna have some things that are a bit unusual
to it You know most contests you you can only
work people once but in this contest Within the
rules and then I don't know them perfectly off
the top of my head but there is an allowance
to work people more than once and The reason
is because we want to see the same propagation
paths over time as the solar eclipse progresses.
So there are provisions for that. I believe it's
going to involve some things like you're going
to be asked to send actual signal reports. Let's
not let's not give everybody five nine. Let's
wait a minute. You're five. Everybody's five
nine. What are you talking about? Again, again.
Okay. Uh, your prefix again, again, again, your
five nine. Exactly. Exactly. So you get a five
nine, you get a five nine. Everybody gets a five
nine. No. Okay. So, so real reports. So I forget
if this is a requirement or a, we're asking for
this, but, um, because there's w we've had a
lot of discussions over how to write the rules
for this contest to try to. Get the type of information
scientifically that we want but That might I
think that's a requirement of it Being in England.
I don't have the rules in front of me here But
there's there's also we're gonna exchange grid
squares so that we have some idea where we are
That's gonna involve. I think both stations grid
squares So that we record that And the idea behind
that is that not only are we going to put a lot
of value on CW operators, but we're going to
put a lot of value on phone operators too, even
though those signals are not computer decodable.
So the logs that people send in, they're going
to be a point of data. And we want to open the
contest to as many people as we can, not just
CW or digital operators. And that's why we're
doing it like this. So it's going to be a little
bit different. But the point is, this is not
a contest where the goal is to make necessarily
for the operators to win or make as many contacts
as they can, which, well, that will be a goal.
But the design of this contest is designed to
do something which will give us the best possible
scientific data. And that's why it's going to
be a little bit different. Okay. Now let's talk
a little bit about what people can do to contribute
to the event besides just getting on the air
and make a bunch of contacts. Mode is going to
matter. And then possibly some extra hardware.
So tell us how people can contribute in other
ways than just making some contacts. Well, I
mean, making some contacts is certainly the easiest
way to do it. We want as many people on the air
as we can get so that we can get a lot of points
of data. But there's some other ways that you
can as well. I had mentioned Reverse Beacon Network.
Well, one thing that we need for this contest
is we need as many Reverse Beacon Network nodes
as possible. Now, our Reverse Beacon Network
node is an SDR -based radio that scans a good
chunk of bandwidth, maybe 192 kilohertz per band.
between two to six bands or maybe just one, but
most stations run between two and six bands.
And they decode all of the signals in the CW
and digital regions or both and send back reports
when they see stations calling CQ. And they also
report things like the amplitude of the signals
and stuff like this. So the... receiver that's
most common with reverse beacon network operators
is not made anymore. It's the Quicksilver QS1R
and anybody who has one of those can use it as
a reverse beacon network receiver up to seven
bands at once and 192 kilohertz slices. Also
if you've got a if you have a flex 6000 series
radio and since this contest is going to be on
a Monday Well, maybe maybe you've got that radio
already, but you're not going to be at home to
operate the contest Well, you can set that up
as a skimmer for either two or four bands depending
on the model or you can buy this This board called
the red bataya Which you can kind of think of
as an electrical engineers Raspberry Pi and there's
instructions on HamSci .org to set this board
up as a six -band reverse beacon network skimmer.
Now, not only that, but one of the things that
we desire to do in this contest is to record
the wideband raw SDR data from these receivers.
What I've been particularly involved in is writing
guides for people with QS1Rs and flex radios
to run their radios as skimmers and recorders.
So I don't think they're published as of yet,
but we're hoping to do that very soon so that
everybody listening has some time to get these
things set up. This is going to generally be
available at. At hamsi .org. That's H -A -M -S
-C -I H -A -M -S -C -I dot O -R -G That's where
we're posting all the all the guides for everybody
who wants to be involved and So this is gonna
generate a decent amount of data For the tests
I ran on my flex which is a 6300 This allows
up to 296 kilohertz wide IQ outputs and they
were about 550 kilobytes per second each. So
that was about two gigs of data per hour times
two. If you have the 6500 up, you can run four
192 kilohertz slices at the same time. And so
that's I think a total of 16 gigs of data per
hour. The idea behind this is that the project
wants to be able to actually analyze the received
data from these stations to look at fine trends
in the signals that were picked up. And you get
a lot more data out of that than just having
the system say, oh, there was a station on this
frequency at this time at this amplitude. You
can see in much more detail, but it is going
to take up a lot of hard drive space. So be aware
of that. The red bataya is the other option to
do this. That's a board. Kind of like in, we
call it an engineer's raspberry, an electrical
engineer's raspberry pie, which is about, I think
it was about $350. And that can be set up as
a six band skimmer and recorder. So there's going
to be guides for all of this on hamsci .org.
And I hope that lots of you listening will go
and. fire up reverse beacon network skimmers
or operate the radio and get involved because
the more points of data we get out of this, the
better. All right. Well, some cool stuff there
and some great data gathering for those people
who... are new to the grid square idea. Of course,
we know all the satellite guys, they know the
grid squares and there's a few grid square chasers
out there. So they know all about the grid square
thing. But a lot of people aren't always familiar
with a grid square. So how can they figure out
what grid square that they should report? There's
a couple easy ways to do that. You mentioned
the satellite guys. Well, AMSAT offers an online
converter on their website, which if you punch
in your latitude and longitude, it will bring
up your grid square. Most amateurs in the US
who have their information on QRZ .com could
look it up there. based on their current home
address that's in QRZ. I think ARRL has a converter
online as does the FCC. So there's plenty of
ways to convert your latitude and longitude that
you can go look up on Google Earth with your
address into your Maidenhead grid square. And
then you'll use that in the exchange for the
contest. Yeah. So basically what's happening
is we're taking the whole globe and chopping
it up into little squares and, and they're numbered
and lettered, um, in order. And, um, yeah, I
was going to say that probably the easiest way
to do that is just go to qrz .com, look up your
yourself. And then, uh, I think you have to go
on detail. I think it is, and it'll give you
your grid square for your home address. And then
if you operate portable, then you may have to
go to one of the converters to figure that out.
But it would be a good thing that you need to
look up ahead of time so you know what grid square
you're operating from. Right. So maybe you're
hauling yourself down to the desert where, you
know, there's not going to be any clouds that
you can actually go view the eclipse and you've
got a radio in your backpack. Well, you can figure
it out this way too. Very good. And we've talked
a little bit about how that's going to be used
to study propagation, but anything else that
you can think of that, you know, was going to
come out of this data. Well, we don't know and
that's that's why we're excited but the in the
past We've seen some really interesting things
come out of reverse beacon network and in spotting
clusters and in just a just a couple months ago
There were some things presented by dr. Phil
Erickson at hamvention I believe it was his presentation,
where they were talking about the use of this
network in tracking 6 -meter activity during
this unusually active sporadic e -season, and
they were using the tool because it gave quite
a lot of coverage over where the 6 -meter openings
were occurring, and they were correlating this
with meteorological phenomena. We have some new
hypotheses we're looking at right now in terms
of how meteorological events affect six meter
propagation. But the whole point is we don't
really know what we're going to get out of this.
We had some discussions before I left for Europe
about potentially designing SDR receivers that
could be useful both for ham purposes and also
for scientific purposes. And one of the biggest
things we ran into is, well, how do we design
these receivers to satisfy requirements that
we don't know what they are yet? So we were trying
to set this up in a way that gives us information
that answers some of those questions and hopefully
is useful to learn a bit about ionospheric phenomena.
And that's why we we hope to have you all on
board with this. All right. Well, That's a snapshot
of the solar eclipse QSO party. I know QST had
or as I like to call it Q Street had that on
the cover so there's some information there and
then hamsci .org is where you can find some of
these guides that will be coming up soon and
some more information there so be sure to check
that out. And one last thing before we go because
I'm a chemistry teacher and it's always safety
first. Let's remind everybody quickly about if
you're just going to go out and watch the eclipse
How to do that safely while you're getting on
the Q. So party hopefully So there's one thing
to keep in mind is that it's never safe To look
at the Sun especially for extended periods and
not only that but you're not going to see the
eclipse very vividly if you're just looking at
the sun. It's not something you want to do. Your
vision is valuable. Don't burn it out by looking
at the sun. You can, however, do it through welder's
goggles and stuff like this. There's some guides
online as how to do that. But don't look at the
sun directly, and especially don't point a telescope
at the sun. because that collects the light and
focuses it on your eyes and you can you can burn
your retina nearly instantly by using a telescope
to look at the sun. Plenty of ways to do it but
don't do it with your naked eyes. Yeah I remember
looking at one back when I was a kid and we used
the telescope but I had a sun filter and then
we also kind of reflected it onto a piece of
paper, I think it was, or something like that.
And so where we weren't looking straight into
it and, and was able to watch it that way. And
then, then we did the welders, uh, helmet thing.
Dad had a helmet. So, uh, through that. So, yeah,
just want to make sure everybody's aware of that.
We don't want anybody burning out retinas. So,
uh, Gotta get the the safety tip of the week
in here. So anything else we need to talk about
before we take a break and take some calls? Well,
I think that's pretty much it. But I mean, we're
really looking forward to seeing, you know, first
of all, how much how much participation can we
get? And, you know, I'll just reiterate a couple
of things that there's lot of ways to participate
with what gear you already have if you're an
HF operator. If you've got a Flex 6000 series
radio you can either be on the air or if you
are going to be busy at work that day or something
because it's Monday August 21st is when this
contest is. But if for some reason you're not
going to be on the air you can run that radio
as a as a reverse beacon network skimmer and
recorder, as you can with the Red Bataya and
QS1R and a couple other popular SDRs, whether
or not we've written guides for them, there's
ways to get the data to go to a CW skimmer. And
at that point, it's pretty easy to integrate
with a reverse beacon network aggregator. However
much you want to contribute, however much or
however little, we consider it valuable and certainly
in the case of a crowd -sourced effort, we're
pushing to be able to accommodate people with
all sorts of different equipment and all sorts
of different abilities to contribute to the event
because by accommodating as many people as we
can. That's how we're going to get as many points
of data as possible. And we're really looking
forward to seeing what comes out of this. So
thank you everybody who's listening tonight and
considering participating. All right. And we
just now mentioned the date. So that happened
to think, you know, let's We probably ought to
mention what time, how early we want to start
on this. And also, yes, it's the day after Huntsville.
It's the day after I get home from Huntsville.
So August 21st and timing. It's an eight -hour
contest and to be honest, I don't remember the
exact times, but they're certainly posted on
HamSci .org as are going to be the guides how
to operate in the contest and how to run these
various receivers as reverse beacon network nodes.
Okay, well, we're gonna take a break here and
I will actually run over and get those times
and we'll throw that in. But since Sam is across
the pond tonight, we're pre -recording this,
as I said, so he's not gonna be around for the
question and answer session, but we will have
one. So we will come back and we'll do that with
somebody else from the solar eclipse. QSO party
team right here on HamTalk Live. This episode
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ham talk live so it's time to take your calls
now and as i said sam's still in england so uh
dr nathaniel forsell w2naf is here that we were
talking about he's uh the one doing all this
research and he's here to answer your questions
so if you have a question for nathaniel the phone
number to call right now is 812 net ham1 that's
812 -638 -4261 or you can call us on skype with
hamtalklive is the username there and or you
can tweet us at hamtalklive so now's the time
to call if you have a question about the solar
eclipse quso party and nathaniel thanks for covering
for sam tonight and uh taking with some questions
You're welcome Neil. I'm glad to be here We've
been talking as the recording played because
we both listened to it earlier and Dr. Frisell
is at NJIT the New Jersey Institute of Technology
over in Newark and He's the one that's going
to be Doing a lot of this stuff and one of the
things that I noticed after we recorded with
Sam was the logging and there is and an update
for N1MM Plus for that. So while we're waiting
on people to call, so go ahead and call now 812
-NET -HAM -1 or Skype us or tweet us. But while
we're waiting on that to come in, why don't you
fill us in a little bit on the logging for this
QSO party? Sure, Neil. So yes, N1MM Plus does
have support for the solar eclipse QSO party
in it. If you download the latest version, you
can choose the log type eclipse and it should
have everything you need to be able to log the
QSO party. But I did see you have to get the
latest version because I guess there was a bug.
There was a bug, but I saw that they posted the
latest version and they said that the bug has
been corrected. I just saw they posted it. I
saw that about 20 minutes before the show, so
I haven't tested it out yet myself, but hopefully
tomorrow or early next week I'll get that downloaded
and I will test that out and post a new sample
log file on HamSci .org. Okay, so be watching
HamSci .org for the details. And we mentioned
the times that we were going to give you those.
So that's 1400 Zulu to 2200 Zulu. Those are the
times again, August 21st, 1400 UTC to 2200 UTC
is when you need everybody out there on the air.
That's right. We're looking forward to it. All
right. So What are you going to be doing while
this is going on? Well, I certainly hope to be
participating in the SEQP. So I'm planning on
driving down to a place in Kentucky underneath
the path of totality and I'll be bringing my
ham radio and a bunch of friends and we're going
to set up and I'm planning on participating along
with everybody else. All right, very good. So
give us a call 812 -NAT -TAM -1, 812 -638 -4261
or Skype or Tweet. If you have some questions
here, we have a few minutes with Dr. Frisell,
so let's get him some questions here if we can.
So tell us a little bit about this. organization
HamSci and what that's trying to do with ham
radio and science. So HamSci is a ham radio science
citizen investigation and this is an organization
I started with a few friends when I was still
in graduate school and basically I came into
research into space physics research because
I was a ham radio operator and as a researcher
I saw wow the hams have a number of really interesting
data sets like they have a reverse speaking network
PSK reporter whispernet they have all this data
that's not really being tapped for scientific
use I said well I wonder if these two communities
that I'm both fully a part of you know could
work together Can we bring the ham radio community
to help the research community and have the research
community help the ham radio community? And so
HamSci looks to do three things. We look 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. So it's really a two -way collaborative
citizen science ham radio organization. Alright,
pretty cool and I tie science and ham radio together
with the chemistry that I teach and we talk about
electromagnetic radiation and those kinds of
things but this sounds like it's an even better
connection between the two because you're studying
the propagation of things with the ham radio.
That's right. And not only a propagation, but
we're also hoping that we can use the things
we learned from Ham Radio to maybe help us better
understand the ionosphere or the upper atmosphere
and its connection to space and those sorts of
things. All right, very good 812 Nat Ham one
is the phone number eight one two six three eight
four two six one or Tweet us at ham talk live
or Skype us at ham talk live. We've got time
for a question. So if you want to jump in here,
let us know and and maybe even if you're just
planning on Joining in on the QSO party, if you
have some comments about that, jump in and let
us know. And maybe your plans for the eclipse.
I haven't figured mine out yet. I got to work,
I got to teach, and then I'm coming back from
Huntsville, so it's going to be a tight squeeze.
I haven't got an exotic location to go to or
anything, but I'm sure we'll get some time to
take a look at it. Yeah. I hope, I hope so. It
should be a very interesting event. Now I've
heard, um, a lot of people say some places down
in Kentucky. Um, and then I've heard some out
in, in Nebraska. So where's the best belt of
viewing for this? Uh, well, um, I guess, uh,
people may know by now. that the eclipse totality
is going to start in Oregon and go diagonally
southeast across the United States and then in
South Carolina. And really, any of those places
could potentially be a good location as long
as you're within that narrow band path of totality.
The thing you want to watch out for visually
is you want good weather. You want it to be cloud
free. If you look out in the western part of
the United States, there are some places that
are statistically more dry, more cloud -free
at the times when totality is going to take place.
Those are probably some really good options.
You can go on the internet and if you Google
Great American Eclipse, you can find websites
that will tell you these are places where you
are most likely to have... good dry, clear weather.
But the nice thing from a ham radio perspective
is that our radios can see through the clouds.
So if you're interested in the ham radio or just
the radio aspect of it, you can still fully participate
even if you're in a place that is less dry. Or
you might just get lucky, which is what I'm certainly
hoping for. I'm hoping that we have good clear
skies and good radio propagation all at the same
time in Kentucky. Yep. Now that would be nice.
It doesn't happen very often, but you know, it
could happen, right? Yep. Yep. We're going to
hope so. And so, you know, the reverse and one
thing I want to mention is, you know, the reverse
beacons and some of that stuff, you know, kind
of relies more on digital mode. So I'm sure that
would be helpful. if you do a digital mode or
CW, something like that. But just get on the
air and make some contacts and get some activity
on the band so we can see what's going on. And
I wanted to make a note. I know you said you
had to work. You had to teach on that Monday.
People who maybe can't get out and operate, they
might still be able to set up a reverse speaking
network node that they can just leave running
for the day. PSK reporter node. You can just
turn the radio on and have it just listen and
report back and that's a good way to participate
even if you can't actually be there operating
in front of your radio during the eclipse. All
right, very good. Well, we have reached the end
of our time, so I want to thank my guests, Sam
Rose, KC2LRC, and Dr. Nathaniel Frisell, W2NAF,
and everyone out there for listening tonight,
and that is a wrap for this week's edition. of
HamTalk Live. Now, next week, 9 o 'clock Eastern
Time, Andrew, OZ5E, and Lisa Huddleston from
the Ham Band will be on. If you remember that
viral video a few years ago of the people on
the tower doing the music video, they're going
to be here live from Denmark. And we're looking
forward to that. So make sure you tune in for
the Ham Band next week. And for a list of all
of our upcoming guests, you just go to HamTalkLive
.com and click on the show schedule link. So
for now, this is Neil Rapp, WB9VPG, saying 7375.
And may the good DX be yours. Thanks for watching!