Personal Space Weather Station

 

The Personal Space Weather Station project ultimately aims to create a small, multi-instrument system that can make ground-based measurements of the space environment.  The observations from this project will not only be useful to the owner of the system, but also aggregated into a central database for space science and space weather research purporses. Initial work focuses on the development of a scientific-grade high frequency (HF) radio receiver, as well as the necessary software and network infrastructure. This project is led by the The University of Scranton, in collaboration with the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, Inc. (TAPR), Case Western Reserve University / Case Amateur Radio Club W8EDU, the University of Alabama, the New Jersey Institute of Technology Center for Solar Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory.

PSWS Components

The Personal Space Weather Station is a modular system, with each module being developed by a different team. Visit the links below to learn about the different parts of the PSWS.

Research Questions

The PSWS project is motivated by questions both from the amateur radio and science communities.

Science Questions

  • How does the ionosphere respond to inputs from space and from the neutral atmosphere?
  • How does the ionosphere couple with the neutral atmosphere and with space?
  • What are the sources of medium and large scale traveling ionospheric disturbances?
  • What are the causes of Sporadic E?

Amateur Radio Questions

  • How do disturbances such as solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and traveling ionospheric disturbances affect radio wave propagation?
  • How does ionospheric science help amateur radio operators improve communications?
  • How can I make measurements in my own backyard that will help improve my amateur radio operations?

Get Involved

We are always looking for new people to get involved! Projects include system design and testing, data acquistion, and data analysis. Visit our Get Involved page to learn how to join the HamSCI Community.

PSWS Resource Links

Please visit the Space Weather Station Working Page for a variety of links and resources related to the HamSCI PSWS Project.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully thank the many volunteers who make this project run, as well as the support of National Science Foundation Grants AGS-2002278, AGS-1932997, and AGS-1932972.

 

Paper on Grape Personal Space Weather Station HF Doppler Observations Published

Friday, March 31, 2023 - 08:09
Submitted 2 months 2 days ago by w2naf.

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.

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N6NC Publishes Propagation Research Articles in QEX

Saturday, March 18, 2023 - 05:12
Submitted 2 months 2 weeks ago by w2naf.

A key component of the HamSCI mission is to encourage amateurs to conduct and share their own research and experiments. Larry Serra N6NC recently published two articles in QEX Magazine from his trans-North Pacific 40m propagation projects: The first, "Why Summer 40m Propagation Is So Good Between Japan and the US Pacific Coast" (QEX SEPT/OCT 2022 p.14), examined 12 years of July JA-US 40m propagation conditions and CW Skimmer results on days of JA domestic CW contests and proposed that the relatively calm water under the almost wall-to-wall summertime North Pacific HIGH pressure centers provided nearly +12dBm enhanced low-angle signal strength due to a reduction of surface reflection absorptions in the 3-ionospheric refraction, 2-sea surface reflection propagation path.

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The WWV Frequency Celebration: Live Stream March 2, 2023

Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 10:56
Submitted 3 months 1 day ago by af8a.

Join the WWV Amateur Radio Club, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery (FCMoD), and the HamSCI for two excellent lectures to be live streamed on March 2, 2023 at 5:00PM Mountain Std Time (0000 UTC):

  • The History of WWV Frequency Broadcasts - Glenn Nelson, WWV Staff, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
  • WWV as a Beacon for Citizen Science - Dr. David Kazdan and Rachel Boedicker - Case Western Reserve University/HamSCI  Aidan Montare - NIST Boulder/HamSCI

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