Journal of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers January- February 2015
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RADIO ASTRONOMY Journal of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers January- February 2015 1 Radio Waves President’s Page 3 Editor’s Note 4 News Ken Redcap SARA President 2015 SARA Western Regional Conference Western Conference Abstracts 6 Kathryn Hagen Mark Your Calendar 10 Editor Call for Nomination 11 Whitham D. Reeve SARA Annual Conference at NRAO 11 Contributing Editor Call for Papers: 2015 SARA Annual Conference 12 Christian Monstein New Website Sections Introduced; Further Enhancements to Come 12 Contributing Editor Stan Nelson Feature Articles Contributing Editor Slooh Broadcasts with Radio Meteor Audio‐ Stan Nelson 14 The Big Bang is Bunk‐ Grote Rebe r 16 Lee Scheppmann Technical Editor PstRotator Antenna Rotator Software Application for Radio Astronomy ‐ Whit Reeve 23 Radio Astronomy is published bimonthly as the Cassiopeia: A Scintillation Observed by Radio JOVE Participants ‐Dave official journal of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. Duplication of uncopyrighted Typinski et al 31 material for educational purposes is permitted Leap Second to be Added in 2015!‐‐Whit Reeve 37 but credit shall be given to SARA and to the specific author. Copyrighted materials may not RASDRviewer Pulsar Feature Description ‐ Paul L. Oxley 39 be copied without written permission from the Radio‐Frequency Interference (RFI) From Extra‐High‐Voltage (EHV) copyright owner. Transmission Lines‐Patrick C. Crane 45 Radio Astronomy is available for download only Callisto‐Pi: Callisto Spectrograms from Rasperry Pi‐‐Whit Reeve 79 by SARA members from the SARA web site and First Light of TLM‐18 Antenna 85 may not be posted anywhere else. Book Review—Radio Propagation 86 It is the mission of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) to: Facilitate the flow of Membership information pertinent to the field of Radio As‐ tronomy among our members; Promote New Members 88 members to mentor newcomers to our hobby Membership Dues and Promotions 88 and share the excitement of radio astronomy with other interested persons and organizations; Promote individual and multi station observing Administrative programs; Encourage programs that enhance the Officers, directors and additional SARA contacts 90 technical abilities of our members to monitor cosmic radio signals, as well as to share and analyze such signals; Encourage educational Resources programs within SARA and educational outreach Great Projects to Get Started in Radio Astronomy 91 initiatives. Founded in 1981, the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers, Inc. is a Education Links 93 membership supported, non‐profit [501(c) (3)], Online Resources 95 educational and scientific corporation. Copyright © 2015 by the Society of Amateur For Sale, Trade, Wanted Radio Astronomers, Inc. All rights reserved. SARA Polo Shirts 96 For Sale 96 Photograph: Control room, 40‐Meter Telescope, Owens Valley Radio Observatory 2 ‐Radio Waves President’s Page SARA had a booth at the 2015 HAMcation event in Orlando, FL. Many thanks go out to Melinda and Tom and Lynn Crowley for their help in supporting this effort. We got to meet a number of RA enthusiasts and talked a great deal on Software Defined Radio (SDR), SuperSID and Radio Jove just to name a few topics. Just as HAMvention doubled in size for SARA this year HAMcation could do the same in May. There is still time to register for the 2015 Western Conference to be held at Standford University in Palo Alto, California March 20 to 22. More information is in this Journal as well as on‐line at http://www.radio‐ astronomy.org/meetings. It may seem a long way off, but we need to be thinking about officers and directors nominations. If you are interested in serving as secretary, treasurer, director or director‐at‐large, let me know. Also, take a minute to look at the responsibilities and duties of these positions at http://www.radio‐astronomy.org/pdf/operating‐procedures.pdf. The Annual Eastern Conference is set for June 21 to June 24, 2015 at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. More details are available on‐line at http://www.radio‐astronomy.org/meetings and in upcoming Journals. May your noise figure be low, Ken Redcap KR5ARA 3 Editor’s Notes We are always looking for basic radio astronomy articles, radio astronomy tutorials, theoretical articles, application and construction articles, news pertinent to radio astronomy, profiles and interviews with amateur and professional radio astronomers, book reviews, puzzles (including word challenges, riddles, and crossword puzzles), anecdotes, expository on “bad astronomy,” articles on radio astronomy observations, suggestions for reprint of articles from past journals, book reviews and other publications, and announcements of radio astronomy star parties, meetings, and outreach activities. If you would like to write an article for Radio Astronomy, please follow the Author’s Guide on the SARA web site: http://www.radio‐astronomy.org/publicat/RA‐JSARA_Author’s_ Guide.pdf. You can also open a template to write your article http://www.radio‐astronomy.org/publicat/RA‐JSARA_Article_Template.doc Let us know if you have questions; we are glad to assist authors with their articles and papers and will not hesitate to work with you. You may contact your editors any time via email here: editor@radio‐astronomy.org. I will acknowledge that I have received your submission within two days. If I don’t, assume I didn’t receive it and please try again. Please consider submitting your radio astronomy observations for publication: any object, any wavelength. Strip charts, spectrograms, magnetograms, meteor scatter records, space radar records, photographs; examples of radio frequency interference (RFI) are also welcome. Guidelines for submitting observations may be found here: http://www.radio‐astronomy.org/publicat/RA‐ JSARA_Observation_Submission_Guide.pdf Tentative Radio Astronomy due dates and distribution schedule Issue Articles Radio Waves Review Distribution Jan – Feb February 12 February 20 February 23 February 28 Mar – Apr April 12 April 20 April 25 April 30 May – Jun June 12 June 20 June 25 June 30 Jul – Aug August 12 August 20 August 25 August 31 Sep – Oct October 12 October 20 October 25 October 31 Nov – Dec December 12 December 15 December 20 December 31 4 News 2015 SARA Western Regional Conference Palo Alto, California, USA on 20 ‐ 22 March 2015 The 2015 SARA Western Regional Conference will be held at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 20 ‐ 22 March 2015. The meeting will include a visit the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC). Presentations and proceedings: In addition to presentations by SARA members, we plan to have speakers from the Stanford University faculty, SETI Institute, Allen Telescope Array and possibly KIPAC. Papers and presentations on radio astronomy hardware, software, education, research strategies, philosophy, and observing efforts and methods are welcome. Formal proceedings will be published for this conference. If presenters want to submit a paper or a copy of their presentation, we will make them available to attendees on CD. Basic schedule: Our first day will include a visit to the KIPAC facilities at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The next two days' meetings will take place on the Stanford University campus and will include presentations by members and guest speakers. Getting there: Fly into San Jose or San Francisco airports and rent a car to drive to Palo Alto. Registration: Registration for the 2015 Western Regional Conference is just US$55.00. This includes breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday. Payment can be made through PayPal, www.paypal.com by sending payment to treasurer@radio‐astronomy.org. Please include in comments that the payment is for the 2015 Western Regional Conference. You also can mail a check payable to SARA, 2189 Redwood Ave, Washington, IA 52353, USA. Please include an e‐mail address so a confirmation can be sent to you when we receive your payment. Hotel reservations: Marriott Courtyard Palo Alto Los Altos Marriott hotel(s) offering SARA a special group rate: Courtyard Palo Alto Los Altos for 129.00 USD per night, Last day to book by: 3/5/15 http://www.marriott.com/meeting-event-hotels/group-corporate- travel/groupCorp.mi?resLinkData=SARA^paocy%60sarsara|sarsarb%60129.00%60USD%60false%603 /19/15%603/23/15%603/5/15&app=resvlink&stop_mobi=yes What to wear: Our conference settings are casual. Saturday night dinner: We will make a group dinner reservation at a local restaurant for Saturday night. Additional Information: Additional details will be published online at www.radio‐astronomy.org/meetings and in the SARA journal, Radio Astronomy, as we get closer to the conference date. Please contact conference coordinators David Westman and Keith Payea if you have any questions or if you would like to help with the conference: westernconference@radio‐astronomy.org. 5 Western Conference 2015 Abstract Author: Tom Hagen Title: Portable VLF Receiver for Making Calibrated Magnetic Field Strength Measurements Abstract: This presentation is about the author's continuing efforts to get calibrated measurements of the field strengths of the various VLF stations used by the SuperSID program as reference sources to detect sudden ionospheric disturbances (SID’s). Presently, the amplitude of data coming in from the various SuperSID stations around the world is uncalibrated. When a SID is detected, there is a measurable change in relative signal strength, but actual field strengths are unknown. If a portable VLF receiver and loop antenna setup could be developed that is calibrated, then such a setup could be shipped to different sites for calibrated field strength measurements. Users could even build their own receiver and loop antenna from standard plans. A small loop design and two receiver designs are discussed. Estimated sensitivities of each receiver design are calculated. Calculations are verified with laboratory tests. Author: Curt Kinghorn Abstract: One of the following: 1. Converting drift scan lines from one of my radio telescopes to a full‐fledged sky map/image.