[June 2021 Eclipse Festival] Initial Notes from Practice Day

[Kristina Collins]

Hi all,

Thanks to all who participated in the practice day! I do my best to respond to all emails, so please let me know if I've missed yours. 

I received files from the following stations: AA8K, DH6MB, ES5NHC, F4IEW, F5GNR, JJ1BDX, K1FR, KB3CS, KC3BTV, KD8RV, KT3L, PA0ARR, PA0WRT, PA0SLT, VA3CBN, VE3YX, VE4GLS, VK2DLR, VK7KPC, W0EJO.

I also received an Audacity project with no callsign associated; please email me if it is yours. 

I received survey responses from the following stations: AA8K, DH6MB, ES5NHC, F4IEW, F5GNR, G8KBV, JJ1BDX, K1FR, KA4RXP, KB3CS, KC3BTV, KD8RV, MM0HVW, PA0ARR, VA3CBN, VE3YX, VE4GLS, VK2DLR, VK7KPC, W7LUX. Thank you for your feedback. 

Here are some notes and lessons learned...

Survey Languages.

Thanks to early responders Bob VE3YX and Joe W7LUX for pointing out a bug in the Google survey which caused it to require input in multiple languages. This error has been corrected. 

Time Zones (Beware of Daylight Saving)

Thanks to Greg KD8RV for pointing out a pitfall in the instructions: your letter code may change if you are now observing Daylight Saving Time. Since the instructions were written in December, W8EDU's timezone is listed as R, for UTC-5. Now that Daylight Saving Time is active, its timezone should be Q, for UTC-4. This means that if you collected data in December, your filename may not be accurate. 

I am hoping to put together a software solution to eliminate the need for this code to be entered in future experiments. In the meantime, please check the shift between UTC and your system time and make sure the letter in your filename is correct:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_time_zones 

 (As always when the topic of timezones comes up, I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY )  

Filenames.  

Please make sure your filename is consistent with the standardized convention: e.g., "W8EDU_R_9.999MHz_2020-10-23_22-36-18.wav". This is important because the files are processed automatically. 

Length of WAV Files.

Thanks Nick M0HGU for bringing this up: For the multiday data collection, it's best to stop and restart recording in Audacity once a day or so, in order to make sure that your recordings don't exceed the maximum file size. 

The script that I will run the WAV file through finds the start time from the filename, converts it to a timetable, and repeats for each WAV file and sticks them all together, so it doesn't matter how many files you submit. 

I will send some additional updates on this list, as well as reminders when we approach the beginning of the event. 

Thanks and 73,

-Kristina