Month: February 2024

From ARRL News:

The Case Amateur Radio Club, W8EDU, the club station at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, is asking for amateur radio operators to help with a research project centered around the April 8, 2024, solar eclipse.

W8EDU club member Adam Goodman, W7OKE, said the project centers around studying the effects of the eclipse on propagation to better understand the recombination time of the ionosphere.  

“To do this, we are recruiting North American amateur stations interested in recording the Canadian time standard station CHU (Canada’s WWV) for two weeks surrounding the eclipse,” added Goodman. “Anyone with a KiwiSDR or a rig that can interface with analysis/recording software such as Fldigi is encouraged to reach out to us to participate.”  

W8EDU club member and project software manager Maris Usis, KE8TXG, said that while the software is simple to use, there is some detailed work involved. “We can help make it easier and there are good online instructions as well,” said Usis.  

All of the participation details are on the club’s website at https://w8edu.wordpress.com/chu-eclipse-data-collection/.  

W8EDU club faculty advisor David Kazdan, AD8Y, said the research project has received positive attention from the ARRL Collegiate Amateur Radio Program community, the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) community, and Case Western Reserve University’s engineering deans. “It is already a truly international effort, and we are collaborating with more than 20 stations across the continent, from collegiate and high school stations, to a representative from the Radio Amateurs of Canada, to a station in Mexico,” said Kazdan.  

The 2024 solar eclipse will over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. ARRL is a partner with HamSCI to help promote this opportunity for radio amateurs to participate in an active science experiment, through the Solar Eclipse QSO Party.

02/02/2024—The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully landed their Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) on January 19, 2024. Just before touchdown, SLIM released two small lunar surface probes, LEV-1 and LEV-2.LEV-2 collects data while moving on the lunar surface, and LEV-1 receives the data.

The JAXA Ham Radio Club (JHRC), JQ1ZVI, secured amateur radio license JS1YMG for LEV-1, which has been transmitting Morse code on 437.41 MHz since January 19. The probe uses a 1 W UHF antenna with circular polarization and is transmitting “matters related to amateur business.”

Radio amateurs have been busy analyzing JS1YMG’s signal, with Daniel Estévez’s, EA4GPZ, blog introducing the method and extraction results for demodulating Morse code from the signal, as well as extracting the code string.

It’s unclear how long signals will be heard. JAXA has said that SLIM was not designed to survive a lunar night, which lasts about 14 days, and is due to return in a few days.

SLIM was launched on September 6, 2023, and landed on January 19, 2024, with the mission of analyzing the composition of rocks to aid research about the origin of the moon. SLIM’s landing made Japan the fifth country to achieve a soft touchdown on the moon. The landing was achieved with exceptional precision — within 180 feet of its targeted touchdown location.