Monthly Archives: October 2016

Activism, Space Policy, SpaceCasts

The Space Show this week – Oct.31.2016

The guests and topics of discussion on The Space Show this week:

1. Monday, Oct. 31, 2016: 2-3:30 PM PDT (5-6:30 PM EDT, 4-5:30 PM CDT): We welcome back Maj. Gen. Jim Armor, USAF (Ret), Staff Vice President, Washington Operations for Orbital ATK, Inc. in Arlington, VA..

2. Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2016: 7-8:30 PM PDT, 10-11:30 PM EDT, 9-10:30 PM CDT; No show today.

3. Friday, Nov. 4, 2016: 9:30-11AM PDT; (12:30-2 PM EDT; 11:30 AM – 1 PM CDT) We welcome Susanne Peters  from Germany. Ms. Peters will be addressing orbital debris issues. Note: Due to a planned power outage, the date & time for this program may change. Check the website newsletter for the latest regarding the scheduling of this program.

4. Sunday, Nov. 6, 2016: 12-1:30 PM PDT We welcome back Dr. John Jurist to discuss space radiation issues for long duration spaceflight and the acoustic signatures of large rockets.

See also:
* The Space Show on Vimeo – webinar videos
* The Space Show’s Blog – summaries of interviews.
* The Space Show Classroom Blog – tutorial programs

The Space Show is a project of the One Giant Leap Foundation.

The Space Show - David Livingston
David Livingston
Space participation, Space Radio, The Moon

Amateur radio enthusiast bounces signals off the Moon with balcony antenna

The ARRL ( American Radio Relay League) recently sponsored the “Moon bounce” EME Contest in which contestants demonstrate “Two-way communications via the earth-moon-earth [EME] path on any authorized amateur frequency above 50 MHz”. One entrant did his Moon bouncing from his balcony: Austrian Moonbounce Enthusiast Demonstrates Success with Small-Scale Setup | ARRL

Hannes Fasching, OE5JFL, of Braunau am Inn, Austria, has demonstrated that you don’t need a huge antenna system to operate EME (moonbounce) successfully. Fasching fired up for the October 22-23 weekend of the ARRL EME Contest, using a small horn antenna on 1.2 GHz.

ememeshantenna-hannesfasching
The 1.2 GHz mesh antenna for EME – Hannes Fasching (OE5JFL)

“Because of other commitments I had only a few hours to be QRV in the first part of the ARRL EME Contest,” he said in a Moon-Net post on October 26. “As tests with my recently built 23-centimeter horn antenna were promising, I decided to give it a try to work some stations.” Fasching placed the horn on his balcony with an 80 W solid-state amplifier.

Operating WSJT, he logged contacts with Switzerland, Russia, Germany, and the Czech Republic. He also heard stations in the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and Italy on digital modes and in the UK, Czech Republic, Denmark, and Italy on CW.

Fasching, who also has a 7.3-meter homemade dish, has uploaded recordings of some EME signals to his website, along with the results of tests with his small system.

Find more about Fasching’s setup at EME using small antennas – Hannes Fasching (OE5JFL)

Listen to this sci-fi sounding recording by Fasching of the EME signals:

 

SETI

Video: The radio search for extraterrestrial intelligence at the SETI Institute

A review by Gerry Harp of SETI Institute radio telescope observations, new technologies, and plans for the coming years:

From 2009 through 2015, the SETI Institute used the Allen Telescope Array to observe stars with high probability of hosting exoplanets. Nearby stars were chosen based on radial velocity observations that indicate planets, and a more distant set of stars were chosen from the Kepler Space Telescope’s list of probable and confirmed exoplanets. By choosing stars that have planets we hoped to improve our chances for finding ET in our radio telescope observations. In this talk Dr. Harp will describe the novel technologies developed for this search by the SETI Institute and what we have learned from the last six years of SETI observations. Dr. Harp will also consider future directions the SETI Institute may take to improve on this search in the coming years.