Research Updates and Upcoming Eclipse Campaign June 7-12

[Kristina Collins]

Hi all,

Read on for Eclipse Festival updates. There's been a lot going on in the past few months!

1) Processing of 2020 Eclipse Data. 

For earlier Doppler experiments, we've used real-time processing to extract information. However, the total length of the audio collected in the December experiment was over 1.5 years. So it was necessary to use the High Performance Computing Cluster here at CWRU to process the data more quickly in a parallelized form, which required the development of new software.

I've mentioned on this list previously that I have three students - Joanna Elia KE8SBA, David Casente and Marius Mereckis - who have been working on data processing for the December Eclipse Festival in the spring term. They have developed code to perform digital signal processing, parallelize the analysis on the HPC, and visualize the data. All three students will continue working over the summer to finish processing the 2020 data, develop a robust workflow for data from future eclipse festivals and other distributed Doppler experiments, and document their work for publication. 

You can read their HamSCI 2021 presentation here: https://hamsci.org/publications/december-2020-eclipse-festival-analysis

2) Publications: Peer-Reviewed Journal Article in IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters and Print Feature in Eos.

Our work on the WWV Centennial Festival of Frequency Measurement, which formed the original basis for the Eclipse Festivals, was recently published. You can read the open-access article here: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9377452 

Additionally, an article I wrote on the use of ham radio in space science appears on page 26 of this month's geospace-focused issue of Eos, the magazine of the American Geophysical Union: https://eos.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MAY21.pdf 

A map of volunteer participation in both 2020 Eclipse Festivals is included. 

3) QSL Cards.

Thank you for your tremendous patience in waiting for the certificates from last year's events. I've completed only one mailing so far, for the WWV Centennial Festival. I'm finally completing the designs for last year's Eclipse Festivals, and plan to send them out on this list soon before sending the printed copies by mail. 

If you mailed me a flash drive (N2KJD, VE3YX, VE4GLS, WA1TCC) it will be returned to you in the same envelope as your QSL card(s). 

4) June 2021 Eclipse Festival: June 7-12, 2021.

We have another annular eclipse coming up fast! This eclipse has an unusual geometry, since it passes through the Arctic auroral zone (unlike the 2020 eclipses, which were in the mid-latitudes). It will give us an opportunity to examine the superimposed effects of the eclipse and auroral precipitation. I expect that the primary beacon for this experiment will be RWM, but that may change after preliminary testing since the polar ionosphere is quite distinct from mid-latitudes.

You can read more on the event page here: https://hamsci.org/june-2021-eclipse-festival-frequency-measurement

Updates will be posted to that page as we get closer to the event, as well as to this mailing list. In the meantime, please mark your calendars. 

Data collection instructions have been moved to a central page so that they can be reused for multiple experiments more easily: https://hamsci.org/doppler-instructions

If you collected audio data for the December Eclipse, the procedure for this campaign is very similar: the only change is that your local oscillator frequency should be included in the filename as described on the instructions page.

5) Grape 1.0 Stations. 

If you are interested in setting up long term data collection without tying up your radio, the first Personal Space Weather Station prototypes are now available for experimenters. This device, the Grape 1.0, is a purpose-built receiver for recording Doppler shift from WWV frequencies. It is a prototype only, and support is limited, but a group of HamSCI volunteers are available to help answer questions. You can read more about the project here: https://hamsci.org/grape1

6) Seeking translators.

HamSCI is seeking volunteers to translate some of our webpages in order to encourage international participation, particularly the page on HF Doppler collection. If you are interested, please email me. You can see a list of currently translated pages here: https://hamsci.org/translations

I will send follow-up emails on this list regarding the June 2021 Eclipse Festival as we get closer to the start date. 

Thanks and 73,

-Kristina KD8OXT