Semiannual Project and Activity Review
January through June 2008

Table Mountain Field Site,
Longmont, Colorado

The first half of 2008 was very busy for DSES. Work on the CU upper dish control system continued, the upper electrical and control wiring were updated, and, very exciting, collaborations with ITS and CU Aerospace Engineering had us "chasing" GPS satellites.

After long negotiations, Paul J. Plishner donated the property in Haswell, CO. that includes the third of the original 60-foot dishes on Table Mountain! Congratulations to Michael Lowe for facilitating this tremendous acquisition.

Joseph DiVerdi was able to digitize the voltages from the course and fine selsyn inputs to provide upper dish position data. These data were necessary to enable position feedback information into a controller. Also, they can be used to monitor the dish position when offsite.

The CU upper dish control system was begun in the fall of 2007. The DSES student members, Jake Niece and Albert Wu, worked up to a first test by the winter holidays. This test moved the dish in both azimuth and elevation, but much tuning was necessary. The tests these same two student members conducted beginning in January of 2008 were directed toward finding settings for gain and offset. Other settings required for useful control were the Proportional, Integral, and Differential (PID) mode levels. The final tests showed some minor tuning is still required, and that the azimuth motor may not be ideally suited to tracking Low Earth Orbit (LEO) objects. All in all, however, we are very much closer to having a working automated upper dish control system. DSES members Dennis Akos (CU Aerospace Engineering faculty), Paul Berge (removed the 460-volt motor supply from the commutator), Joseph DiVerdi, John Ewan, Peter Goldman, and Jamie Riggs provided support with the functional specifications, infrastructure upgrades, and system testing.

Paul Berge, Rodney Howe, and Steve Zerbe were able to replace a bad feed cable from the lower dish feed horn to the interior of the lower dish tower. This reduced the noise on this feed line considerably.

Steve Zerbe installed three cameras in T22. They monitor the control room, the upper dish, and the lower dish. The upper and lower dish cameras allow viewing of these dishes motions.

The stairs to the lower dish were rolled over in heavy winds in July 2007. Various industrious members - Paul Berge, Wayne Green and guest Bryan Wilburn, Rodney Howe, and Jamie Riggs - disassembled them and components were salvaged. Portions were placed back into service.

Wayne Green, Rodney Howe, and Jamie Riggs attended the 2008 27th Annual Conference of the Society for Astronomical Sciences (SAS) in Big Bear, CA. Rodney and Jamie each presented papers. Rodney's paper was "Solar Astronomy at DSES: Plasma Motion Detection at Radio Frequencies," and Jamie's was "Characterizing a Microwave Radiometer for Solar Plasma Observations." These papers were well received. Rodney's paper is available on the SAS website. Jamie's paper is available on the DSES website as well as the SAS website.

Jamie Riggs gave a paper to the Society for Amateur Radio Astronomer's (SARA) 2008 Annual Meeting and Technical Conference at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Greenbank, WV. The paper was "Characterizing a Microwave Radiometer for Solar Plasma Observations with a Noon-Time Polar Region as a Load." this paper is available on both the DSES website and the SARA website.

In March and April, in collaboration with the Institute of Telecommunications Sciences (ITS), the University of Colorado Aerospace Engineering Department, and DSES, the then new Chinese Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite "Compass" was tracked and radio signature data were collected and analyzed. This exercised the upper dish control system and provided cooperative activities among the three organizations. We gained a tremendous amount of observing experience. The DSES members involved at the various gatherings were Dennis Akos, Paul Berge, Joseph DiVerdi, Peter Goldman, Jake Niece, Jamie Riggs, Albert Wu, and Steve Zerbe. The CU participants other than DSES members were Oscar Isoz and Eric Vinande. Yuan Yang of Colorado State University was present. The ITS members were Bret Bedford, John Cavvell, John Ewan, Eric Nelson, and Frank Sanders. Congratulations to all for a rewarding activity.

The DSES is an organization of amateur radio operators, astronomers, scientists, radio hobbyists and plain old "big equipment" nuts. Whether you like to help with organization and management, work on a keyboard, try to pull in the weak signals, want to try your hand at digital signal processing or just wonder "what is out there" and you want to see for yourself, the DSES has a place for you.

We still need your help.

The DSES wants to renew its relationship with its members and bring in some new ones as well. In addition to dish improvement projects, we are always looking for projects that use the capabilities of the dish such as radio astronomy, EME, satellite ground station uses, etc.

Do you have something you think we should be adding to our abilities? Come and re-join us! Membership for a full voting member is $50/year and for an associate, non-voting member is $20/year.

Thanks to all who have joined or renewed!

Thank you for your interest in the Deep Space Exploration Society!

For further information you can send email to the board members at dswebmaster@deep-space.org or see our website at http://dses.org". Our newsletter and activity reports are available on this website.

Year In Review 2006*
(And 1st quarter 2007 thrown in)

Table Mountain Deep Space Radio Astronomy Facility,
Longmont, Colorado

2006 was a very good year for DSES, in most ways. The wave of progress continued and a lot of work was done. But, we lost a great deal of equipment to a robbery in the Fall.

On the observing side, the usual suspects: Joseph DiVerdi, Rodney Howe, and Jamie Riggs continue the long term H drift studies. The SMP (Simple Mapping Project), continued and comprehensive data has been collected. Joseph and Jamie have prepared some very interesting graphics with some data, preparing for eventual publication. All three have presented papers or made presentations to several organizations and groups in the past year. Joseph at the Society of Amateur Scientists in Rhode Island, Rodney to the Open European Journal on Variable Stars on Gamma Ray Bursts, in VLF (Very Low Frequency). Joseph and Jamie were busy giving the word to visible astronomy groups about our efforts, such as the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society in Ft. Collins and the Little Thompson Observatory in Berthod. Slate, Joseph and John Ewan were the main drivers of observing several EOSS balloon launches, with some good success and some steep learning curve adventures. Lately, Rodney has been spearheading a look into the 1665MHz OH band, with an idea of searching for MIRA objects.

There were major successes with the facilities and hardware programs beginning with the almost comedic re-establishment of the service

Paul Berge (left) and Robert Slate pose with new lower dish motor controls.

tower/scaffold for the lower dish. After some fits and starts, it is fairly secure and safe. Then, things really got moving. The new Dish Control Panel was assem- bled and installed by Paul Berge. Then the motors ran and it was alive again. (Sorry Shelly) We were all pretty happy about first movement. With lots of continuing work by Paul, who has been joined by new members Don Lewis and Ralph Bellamy and others, they got first light on the Lower Dish on the 1665MHz band at 16:10MDT 25 March, 07. This demonstrates operation of the whole system, from the feed horn all the way up to the T-22 shack location. Lots of stuff left to do, but a major move.

We had our BARC Jr. annual gathering, with good success. Lots of new faces with them and a couple of new members came out of it. With the new Board elections, we welcome the re-election of Joseph DiVerdi, Jamie Riggs (appointed later in 2006 to replace Paul Berge for his remaining term), and Michael Lowe. We have gained several new members this year.

In the coming year we will need to work on replacing and acquiring new equipment for the hoped for projects. Jamie, Joseph, John and others spent a great deal of time working with some groups at the Univ. of Colorado, trying to develop projects for the 2 Dish Drive Controllers and some mechanical studies of the dishes operating limits. The definitions they worked out will be very useful on the next attempt to get some help from a university. A real pie in the sky effort is a little under wraps, but involves another site we might get access to that will allow us to try for reflections on other solar system objects – ask Joseph or Michael.

It is likely that a couple of publications will come out of the observations that have been done. More active members are needed to achieve the goals we have been talking of. Tell your friends, bring them out, and sign them up. If you hear of a school or club that might like to have a Radio Jove system or perhaps a small dish solar radio telescope for their group, get the information to Michael or Wayne Green. We can grow members that way too.

DSES Organizational Opportunities The DSES is an organization of amateur radio operators, astronomers, scientists, radio hobbyists and plain old "big equipment" nuts. Whether you like to help with club organization and management, work on a keyboard, try to pull in the weak signals, want to try your hand at digital signal processing or just wonder "what is out there" and you want to see for yourself, the DSES has a place for you. We still need your help.

The DSES wants to renew its relationship with its members and bring in some new ones as well. In addition to dish improvement projects, we are always looking for projects that use the capabilities of the dish for projects such as radio astronomy, EME, satellite ground station uses etc.

Do you have something you think we should be adding to our abilities? Come and re-join us! Membership for a full voting member is $50/year and for an associate, nonvoting member is $20/year.

Thanks to all who have joined or renewed!

Thank you for your interest in the Deep Space Exploration Society!

Educational Outreach

DSES Hosts Visit by BARC Jr. Ham Radio Group

Upgrades

Stronger Drive Motors Installed on Radio Dishes

March 19, 2005. Work is under way to install stronger drive motors in the radio dishes operated by DSES.

Paul Berge works in cramped quarters to replace a dish drive motor.

Members Robert Slate and assistant Paul Berge have been working to replace the azimuth drive motors in both the upper an lower radio dishes. Following an evaluation of options by the DSES board, a new chain drive system was selected for coupling the new motors to the antenna drive gearboxes. Both of the old 5hp eddy current motors were removed. The new motors are expected to provide greater holding power in the wind and increased stability when doing tracking and radio astronomy research. During the changeout the team will also look into replacing the upper dish's azimuth course selsyn which is suspected of being faulty.

The replacement of the azimuth drive motor in the lower dish is the first of a series of repairs and upgrades planned for it. Although the lower dish has been idle for many years and much work is required to restore it to operability, the impetus to do so has recently come from the DSES astronomy group's desire to have two operational dishes for doing interferometry.

A new anemometer system was recently installed at the DSES site to permit continuous monitoring of wind conditions from the antenna control room in order to assure safer and more trustworthy operation of the dishes. Paul Berge donated the anemometer hardware obtained from a ham radio swap meet and Joseph DiVerdi is working on the signal conditioning and a digital interface that will allow the wind speed as well as the antenna position data to be displayed on the Weather and Operations pages of the DSES website.

Events

DSES Members Visit Arecibo

Two DSES members had the opportunity to visit Arecibo, the world's largest single-dish radio telescope located in Puerto Rico.

The occasion was a regional meeting of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA). The meeting was hosted at the Arecibo Observatory which is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), a national research center operated by Cornell University under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The three day event, December 9-11, 2004 was attended by Rodney Howe and Paul Berge of DSES. Both Rodney and Paul are also members of SARA. The meeting included presentations by SARA members and a tour of Arecibo facility.

Rodney gave two presentations, one concerning the detection of Gamma Ray Bursts and X-ray transients at

Rodney at the Controls of Arecibo

very low frequency radio telescopes, and the other described DSES plans for detection of water vapor in the plume of debris expected to result when the 820 pound impactor aboard the Deep Impact spacecraft is hurled at comet 9P/Tempel 1 next July, 2005.

Besides being a remarkable experience, the trip yielded valuable information and know-how that will be applicable to the DSES radio astronomy project. In particularly Paul Berge had the opportunity to discuss principles and procedures for calibration of the DSES dish for use as a radio telescope.

Copies of the slides from Rodney Howe's presentations can be downloaded here:

Milestones

Extragalactic radio sources successfully tracked

October 11, 2004. A full-up test of the ability of DSES to monitor radio emissions from stars and galaxies while tracking them under computer control was demonstrated today for the first time at the DSES antenna facility on Table Mountain.

The system consists of a special feedhorn tuned to 1420

Location of feedhorn tuned for reception of the HI hydrogen line (1420 MHz). (Click for larger view)

MHz mounted at the focal point of the upper dish, a combination receiver and spectrometer, and a PC used to display and record the incoming signals.

Computer control is achieved using Paratrack, a custom tracking program designed by students from the University of Colorado Aerospace Department under the guidance of members of DSES.

The commands from Paratrack are interfaced to the variable frequency drive motors on the dish by a controller designed by Peter Goldman of DSES. The controller also monitors the dish to assure its safe operation and it returns data from position encoders on the dish back to Paratrack.

The DSES system is capable of monitoring radio emissions from stars in

Rodney Howe points to the SpectraCyber spectrometer and PC used to record and display signals from radio galaxies.

our Milky Way galaxy as well as from extragalactic sources. For today's test the dish was pointed at Messier Object M51, known as the Whirlpool Galaxy located some 30 million light-years from Earth. The SpectraCyber receiver/spectrum analyzer was able to detect the hydrogen line emissions which are a strong coming from M51. The data in the form of spectrograms was stored by another PC.

Although much fine tuning and calibration remains to be done, the step taken today represents a major milestone in our ability to utilize the DSES facility to do radio astronomy.

DSES upper dish now computer controlled

Sunday October 10, 2004 saw the first successful demonstration of computer controlled tracking with the DSES the upper dish.

Peter Goldman watches first test of the DSES computer controlled tracking system.

During the trial, the system was able to track the Sun for several hours and it successfully tracked the International Space Station during an afternoon pass.

The computer controlled tracking system uses a program called Paratrack written by students from the University of Colorado Aerospace Department under the guidance of DSES members. The program runs under Windows on a PC. The PC in turn is interfaced to the dish drive motors through a controller developed by Peter Goldman of DSES.

Goldman's controller circuitry is state-of-the-art and it provides

Prototype controller used to interface Paratrack to dish steering motors.

a number of important safety features to protect the dish. In its present form the controller is layed out as a breadboard to allow for making improvements based on testing and operator suggestions for additional features. Once finalized Goldman plans to produce a circuit board and then replicate it for use with the lower dish.

At present the position readouts from the dish are based on relative values from incremental position encoders. In the future absolute encoders will be installed on the dishes and Goldman's controller will be expanded to accommodate them.

Recent News

Hams visit DSES Antenna Site

September 26, 2004. DSES hosted over a dozen hams from the Denver/Boulder area including Bill McCaa and "the microwave wizards". who came to see the facilities at T-22 and observe our radio astronomy project in progress. DSES members Paul Berge, Rodney Howe, Robert Slate, and Tom Meyer were on hand. One of the highlights was a talk and demonstration by Rodney Howe on how we are able to receive data from galactic sources and measure their velocities. The occasion proved to be a two-way learning experience as some of the hams also offered valuable information and suggestions. The event was organized by Paul Berge, K0DJV, k0djv@earthlink.net.

Tracking News

DSES successfully tracks University of Kentucky balloon flight

Boulder, May 1, 2004. While dodging uncooperative weather, the University of Kentucky launched a balloon carrying an experimental glider from a school yard in Dear Trail, Colorado at 11:31 AM this morning. Unfortunately, the flight ended prematurely when the balloon burst during the ascent phase.

EOSS-76 tracking activity at DSES

The purpose of the flight was to test a concept to deploy and cure glider wings at high altitude, a technique that might ultimately be used on Mars. The flight plan called for deployment of the wings during the ascent phase allowing time for them to cure while the balloon climbed to 100,000 feet at which point the glider would then be released for a free flight back to Earth.

The payload was monitored by a camera mounted on the balloon looking down at the glider. The DSES role was to track and record the ATV (amateur television) camera signal. The video was captured and recorded directly on a PC hardrive.

DSES acquired the signal shortly after the balloon rose above the horizon at a distance of approximately 73 statute miles.

The video signal was excellent and showed the wing deployment at about 63,000 feet. About 70 seconds later there was a shudder after which the flight string started down, fast. The string stayed rigidly in ascent order thru LOS (loss of signal) shortly before landing at a distance of about 135 statute miles.

Because of the failure, the decision was made not to release the glider.

The balloon launch was supported by the Edge of Space Sciences and was designated flight number EOSS-76. EOSS has posted the following Recap of EOSS-76.

More information about the DSES participation can be found in the DSES EOS-76 Tracking Report on the Activities page.

1991 thru 2001, A Decade in Review

Thru the efforts of scientists and enthusiasts the DSES was formed in 1991 to pursue interests in amateur radio, amateur astronomy, education and other uses. While over the years many difficulties have been experienced in the operation of the Table Mountain antenna facility, we have also had many successes.

We found that just to get the dishes to move was a major challenge. Years of neglect, birds, rodents and the advance of technology had left them in a sorry state. Once moving, we had to learn how to precisely position the dish. During this time, various members have taken trips to other facilities including to Arecibo, the VLA/VLBA in Socorro New Mexico and to the Owens Valley and Stanford University facilities in California to learn from their experiences.

We might ask just what have we accomplished since? Let's review that:

We have listened to many space objects both within and outside our solar system. Many local grade schools student have had visits to the site for exposure to the sciences and it is known that at least one student has pursued an education and career related to our work. While we cannot know how much we are responsible, his parents give a lot of credit to the DSES. With member support we shall continue to enlighten both children and adults.

While not intentional, a spin off of the DSES is the Edge of Space Sciences (EOSS). This group while very similar to ours explores destinations closer to home by launching and recovering tropospheric balloon payloads here in Colorado. To date they have had 53 flight missions for many customers including various K-12 schools, universities, the Air Force Academy and commercial entities. Their missions, beyond the enjoyment and education provided, have provided real opportunities for research that would not have been possible otherwise. Some EOSS payloads have even journeyed on into space while current EOSS technology is being used for long term Earth atmosphere research.

We continue to support the EOSS. This support being both EOSS flight support and to further enhance our skills with the operation of the DSES facility. Our involvement with the EOSS includes tracking, telemetry collection and recording of the live television video from the balloons. We work approximately 50% of the EOSS missions.

Another project we did was to receive signals from the Mars Global Relay mission on its journey to Mars. One DSES member, not being locally present for the DSES project had the pleasure of attending Stanford University's & JPL's work with this payload from Stanford University's 150 foot "Big Dish".

The Air Force Academy teamed with DSES to accomplish their "Falcon Gold" mission. This mission involved tracking and telemetry recovery from a satellite that was launched on an Atlas booster. The purpose was to analyze the performance of the Global Position System (GPS) outside of the constellation of the GPS satellites. Use of GPS would relieve satellite operation from the need of continual ground tracking support. As one might see, our support of this mission may have helped many space programs the world over.

Prior to movement of the dish, even prior to acquisition of the Table Mountain Facility by the DSES, deep space charting by one DSES member has been and continues to be a major operation at the DSES facility. While low profile, this work continues to be a major part of our operations.

Facility Operation

Being a non-profit, member sponsored organization provides it's own particular challenge. Maybe this is offset by not having to generate a monetary profit...

Surprisingly, from the start the power bills had been a financial challenge. This was originally met with a donation of a 30kw generator from the University of Colorado, Boulder (CU), allowing us to downsize our commercial source to a more reasonable level. In more recent times, installation of a more efficient motor drive has reduced our need of the generator.

A major failure in the upper dish's azimuth drive system has been repaired, but had left that dish out of service for more than a year for projects requiring azimuth movement.

Initially, we developed a fully manual, open loop control system. Over the years this evolved into a closed loop computerized control system. This software was first written by members and then enhanced further by collaboration with a group of Computer Science students at CU. This work was a formal project with CU where DSES provided a Senior Project for that group of students. The control system continues to develop and provides opportunity for interested members.

Further site enhancement opportunities continue both in motion control and in signal reception and processing. And with every new project, mission specific challenges are presented.

DSES Organizational Opportunities

The DSES is an organization of amateur radio operators, astronomers, scientists, radio hobbyists and plain old "big equipment" nuts. Whether you like to help with club organization and management, work on a keyboard, try to pull in the weak signals, want to try your hand at digital signal processing or just wonder "what is out there" and you want to see for yourself, the DSES has a place for you.

We need your help.

The DSES wants to renew its relationships with long lost members and bring in some new ones as well. In the near future we have a number of potential projects in conjunction with other organizations to be a low-earth orbit satellite ground station, a balloon telemetry tracking station as well as the ongoing radio astronomy project run by one of our members.

Do you have something you think we should be adding to our abilities? Come and re-join us! Membership for a full voting member is $50/year and for an associate, non-voting member is $20/year.

If you wish to join or renew, please send in your dues and provide the information requested on the form below.

Thank you for your interest in the Deep Space Exploration Society!

For further information contact Rex Craig, (303) 530-7251

Application for Membership

Name:________________________________________

Addr:________________________________________

City:_______________State:_____Zip:__________

Phone:_______________________________________

Email:_______________________________________

Skills, Interests & Affiliates:______________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

_____________________________________________ 

Annual Membership Fee, (check one):  

  ___ Full Member $50 (Voting)

  ___ Associate   $20 (Non-voting)  

Date Paid:___________________________________

Mail application to:

  Rex Craig
  DSES President
  5921 Niwot Road
  Longmont, CO  80503

Events

DSES Radio Astronomy Group Active

DSES members interested in radio astronomy have begun meeting for work sessions every Sunday at T-22. New equipment designed to observe hydrogen emissions from super novae and pulsars in the Milky Way galaxy has recently been acquired and more gear is in the pipeline. Members have been working on feedhorn design, testing, calibration, tracking equipment and data recording. Regular work sessions began in August 2004 and are expected to continue indefinitely with the goal of being able to do some original research.

September saw the commencement of 24/7 drift scans. Drift scans are done with the dish pointed at the Zenith, its stowed position, and data is recorded round the clock on a PC. Drift scans utilize the Earth's rotation to sweep the antenna across the sky in a circle around the North Star. During every 24 hour period the antenna passes a number of radio sources whose signals recorded on a PC. Some of these sources are well known and can be used for calibration.

The present system uses a combination spectrometer and receiver tuned to 21 cm (1420 MHz). This is the frequency of the HI (hydrogen) line, a signal emitted from many locations throughout the galaxy as well as from other galaxies. In the future, planned modifications will also permit reception at 1665 MHz, the frequency of one of the OH (hydroxyl) lines. Current work at the DSES site is focusing on the tracking system and on calibrations. Once the system is operational a number of research projects are being contemplated. See Research for more information on the DSES radio astronomy project.