KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

PA

Amateur radio in the news: A teen’s passion for radio, a ham’s view of the Boston Marathon, pico balloon makes it to Italy

By Leave a Comment

A Stroudsburg teens’ passion for radio

[Stroudsburg, Monroe County, PA (WBRE/WYOU)] In this week’s Here’s to You Kid segment, 28/22 News met a young ham radio operator. It’s not only his hobby, what he does also involves helping save lives.

Young man operating a radio.
Samuel Thrall, W3GZ, has a passion for radio.

14-year-old Samuel Thrall, W3GZ,  is a member of the Eastern Pennsylvania Amateur Radio Association (EPARA.) He passed three levels of the FCC Amateur Radio Licensing exam and now helps at the Monroe County Public Safety Center.

What interested him in ham radio in the first place is simple. “The scientific aspect of it is very interesting because it’s a technology we use on a daily basis. Our phones are all powered by radio just with computers built into them,” Samuel explained.

…read more and watch the video

As a ham radio operator, Lacy, of Middleburgh, had interesting perspective on Boston Marathon

[Middleburgh, MA] There are an estimated half a million spectators along the Boston Marathon course in any given year. If you’ve run the race, you know what a half-million voices stretched over 26.2 miles of Massachusetts roads sound like.

Of the over 9,000 volunteers that work Boston, over 300 serve as the voice of the marathon in their own way, but also serve as the eyes and ears. For the last two years, Matt Lacy of Middleburgh has been one of them. On Monday, he took up his assigned station at Mile 11 as one of the amateur (ham) radio operators who play an important role from start to finish by providing a communication network that supplements the other public safety personnel and resources vital to this massive enterprise.

“For the ham radio folks, it’s the premiere public service event, the chance for us to get the experience doing one of these events, having to report to whatever levels we need to, working within the confines of whatever section of the course we’re on,” Lacy said on Wednesday.

…read more

TAG students launch solar-powered balloon

[Iowa Falls, IA] Riverbend Middle School TAG (Talented and Gifted) students launched a solar-powered balloon on April 5 from the school, after a presentation and help from amateur ham radio operator Jim Emmert of Pella. The balloon named PENS-p22 traveled across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, the Atlantic Ocean, Morocco, Algeria the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and the Adriatic Sea.

The “pico balloon” launched by the students made it all the way to Italy.

“I am constantly on the lookout for guest speakers, fascinating projects or unique things that we could learn about,” TAG teacher Amanda Fjeld said. “I value exposing students to new topics and projects of any kind. I am constantly brainstorming ideas and often ask others for engaging project ideas. My friend Jen, who is from Pella, told me about Jim’s Solar Balloon program, so I reached out to him. I was especially excited because I lack knowledge in the world of solar technology and weather patterns but want to expose students to more science-related opportunities.”

Emmert is a retired teacher who lives in Pella and travels to different schools teaching students about amateur radio, earth science, balloons, and GPS technology. He also launches Pico balloons and gives predictions and tracking to the students.

“Our students spent about three hours on the morning of April 5 learning and launching the balloon,” Fjeld said. “It was one of the few times I have had all of the students in TAG in 6th, 7th and 8th grade come together on one project, so it was encouraging to see them interact and work together.”

…read more

HamSCI 2023: Some first impressions

By Leave a Comment

I’m on my way home from the HamSCI 2023 Conference, and while waiting in the airport, I thought I’d record some first impressions. As the date approached, I was feeling kind of reluctant about going. In fact, I almost didn’t go. In the end, though, I’m glad I did.

Impressions:

  1. Scranton seems to be typical of a lot of East Coast and Midwest cities that enjoyed an industrial past, but are not as vibrant today as they once were. It’s in a beautiful spot, and the people are very nice, and I’d say that things will get better in the future.
  2. Scranton is called The Electric City. This is partly due to their steel works’ early adoption electrical power and because they opened they opened what was was recognized as the first street car system in the country to run exclusively on electric power in 1886.
  3. I stayed at the Radisson Lackawanna, which is a very cool hotel (see right). It used to be a train station for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad that ran from Hoboken, NJ to Buffalo, NY. From its construction, you can see how prosperous Scranton was at its peak. One of the unique features of this station/hotel are the 36 ceramic portrayals of scenes along the  railroad line. The first depicts the Hoboken ferry. The 36th depicts a resort near Buffalo.
  4. This was a small, but mighty conference. There were lots of presentations because they used the academic format, which gives presenters only 20 minutes instead of the hour that’s usually given to presenters at ham radio conferences.
  5. The focus was on ionospheric research, but there were topics of more general interest as well. For example, because the Doppler shift is of interest when describing the behavior of the ionosphere, there’s also an interest in accurately measuring signal frequencies.
  6. There were lots of students, as you may expect. The median age was, therefore, much lower than at many ham gatherings.
  7. The attendees were more diverse, too. There were many women and people of color present.

As a result of attending this conference, I’ve added a couple of things to my list of projects I’d like to do at some point. The first is connecting a GPS disciplined oscillator (GPSDO) to my IC-7610 in order to make my frequency measurements more accurate.The second is to play around with VLF reception and listen to some of the naturally-occuring phenomena that produce  RF signals, such as “whistlers.”