This page is an archive of updates pertaining to the June 2020 Eclipse Festival.
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0000 18 June UTC: 48h before start
Control Day Results
First, thanks to all 27 stations who submitted datasets for the first round of data collection. If you are in this group, you should have received an email about your dataset. Most of the receivers seem to be set up pretty well, and I'm excited to see so many participants. (For a current map of everyone who's signed up and/or contributed, check out the
HamSCI website.)
Key: Red for 10 MHz beacons, green for stations who have collected control data, blue for stations who signed up before the first round of data collection and black for stations who have signed up since. (WWV is hidden behind other dots, but you know where it is.)
Correct fldigi Version
John N8OBJ and Steve WA5FRF have been running some tests to validate fldigi's frequency analysis mode. Steve noted that fldigi's discrimination between two adjacent carriers is tighter in version 4.1.13 than in 4.1.12. Accordingly, please make sure you have fldigi version 4.1.13 installed.
Multiple Carriers & Audio Recording
One of the issues encountered during the control period is that some people are receiving more than one carrier at the same time. In particular, several stations in Europe reported two carriers about 20 Hz apart. Jim G0LHZ suggested that this second carrier may be an
experimental time station in Italy. In any case, it leaves fldigi's frequency estimation confused.
For comparison, here's a good dataset from a station receiving one carrier:
And here's a dataset from a station receiving more than one carrier:
To address this issue, I am asking stations to collect audio data as well as frequency estimation data if possible. There are instructions to achieve this using fldigi's RX Capture mode (File>Audio>RX Capture) now posted on the
webpage; it's just a couple of additional clicks. I should note, however, that 3 days' worth of audio data will come to about 4.5 GB, so you'll want to make sure your computer can collect it without crashing. We're exactly 2 days away from the experiment now, so it's a good time to start a test if you're up for it. You can also use another program to record the audio if that is easier.
Again, since this is a later addition to the procedure, please test this out before the beginning of the experiment if you can. Depending on your computer's capabilities, it may not be able to record the audio for very long, and fldigi may crash. If your computer crashes, please restart data collection; we are still interested in all the data you are able to get.
Here's what I suggest: Try to see if you can record 24 hours of audio data before the beginning of the test period. If you can, then go ahead and record audio, restarting fldigi once a day to make sure no data is lost. If you can't, then it's fine to just record frequency analysis data.
Station Debugging
For those of you who still want to participate but are having trouble getting your stations up and running, I will be available via email and Zoom tomorrow from 2pm EDT to 2am EDT.
Kristina Collins is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Eclipse Festival Debugging
Time: Jun 18, 2020 03:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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0000 UTC 19 June 2020: 24 hours before start
Gentlemen, start your radios. (Temperature stability is important for frequency stability. If you don't believe me, check out the attached spectrogram from Franck F4IEW, taken as his radio was warming up.)
Data collection for the Eclipse Festival will start in 24 hours. Many of you have already started, or are currently running tests. If you have not already done so,
please see if your computer can record 24 hours of audio using fldigi's RX Capture mode
as described on the event page.
A bonus mission for well-equipped stations, from Steve WA5FRF: If you are receiving a strong signal from a single carrier and have time to run an additional test, you may wish to try recording with the AGC off. (Not all radios will have this feature.) If you want to pursue this, try the following: With the AGC on, set the volume control of your radio to a comfortable listening level. Turn the AGC off, then modulate the gain until the signal returns to that same comfortable level. Be careful not to let it saturate - if you do, the resulting nonlinearity will compromise your data. This may help us to analyze amplitude changes resulting from the eclipse. Make sure to note that the AGC is off when submitting your data.
I will send a reminder tomorrow, one hour before the start of data collection.
Thanks and 73,
-Kristina KD8OXT
