Tag Archives: NASA

Radio Waves: Keeping Car Radios, Moon Bounce, Voyager 2, and ABC Delays Plan

Radio Waves: Stories Making Waves in the World of Radio

Because I keep my ear to the waves, as well as receive many tips from others who do the same, I find myself privy to radio-related stories that might interest SWLing Post readers. To that end: Welcome to the SWLing Post’sRadio Waves, a collection of links to interesting stories making waves in the world of radio. Enjoy!

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributors Benn, Tony, and Michael Bird for the following tips:

Opinion: Automakers, don’t remove radios from the dashboard (The Detroit News)

Make no mistake about it: The renaissance of electric vehicle manufacturing has been one of the most significant blessings of innovation in the 21st century. The continued production and voluntary adoption of electric vehicles have made the United States a greener and cleaner nation. However, while EV makers continue working to bring the U.S. forward environmentally, they need to ensure their design methods do not have a negative impact on one of the country’s most crucial national security apparatuses.

As the former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that oversaw the operations of over 220 declared disasters, I am concerned about what I’ve seen from automakers removing AM radios from vehicles — an action that will make Americans less safe in emergency situations.

Interference between the broadcast reception and the electric motors of certain cars, principally electric vehicles, is the reasoning behind some companies’ decision to eliminate the radio from car dashboards. However, scrapping radio rather than making the signals compatible can severely harm the federal government’s disaster relief efforts.

Federal law mandates that FEMA always possess the capabilities to deliver messages to the American people. To this end, FEMA has spent tens of million dollars and counting perfecting the Primary Entry Point (PEP) stations — consisting mostly of AM stations, but some FM ones as well — that connect to The National Public Warning System.[…]

Australia’s first ever moon bounce remembered as a feat that shocked industry experts (ABC News)

You probably haven’t heard of Ray Naughton’s feat of science — not many people have. But 55 years ago, the quiet electronics store owner from Birchip, in western Victoria, successfully completed Australia’s first ever moon bounce.

The amateur radio fanatic had spent most of his time alone in a paddock, tinkering away on a 250-metre wide, 30-metre tall antenna capable of bouncing a radio signal off the moon and back again.

Mr Naughton was driven by news that astronauts would soon be walking across its surface.

When that day came, on July 20 1969, Mr Naughton used his antenna to tune into conversations between astronauts and NASA.

A small group of locals watched on in wonder, realising for the first time what their private neighbour had been working on.[…]

When Voyager 2 Calls Home, Earth Soon Won’t Be Able to Answer (NY Times)

NASA will spend 11 months upgrading the only piece of its Deep Space Network that can send commands to the probe, which has crossed into interstellar space.

Voyager 2 has been traveling through space for 43 years, and is now 13 billion miles from Earth. But every so often, something goes wrong.

At the end of January, for instance, the robotic probe executed a routine somersault to beam scientific data back to Earth when an error triggered a shutdown of some of its functions.

“Everybody was extremely worried about recovering the spacecraft,” said Suzanne Dodd, who is the Voyager project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

The mission’s managers on our planet know what to do when such a fault occurs. Although it takes about a day and a half to talk to Voyager 2 at its current distance, they sent commands to restore its normal operations.

But starting on Monday for the next 11 months, they won’t be able to get word to the spry spacecraft in case something again goes wrong (although the probe can still stream data back to Earth). Upgrades and repairs are prompting NASA to take offline a key piece of space age equipment used to beam messages all around the solar system.[…]

ABC forced to delay five-year plan and job cuts announcement (The Age)

The ABC has been forced to delay the release of its five-year blueprint – including job cuts – to prioritise its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The national broadcaster was due to announce its long-term plan at the end of this month. A three-year funding freeze that took effect last July, stripping $84 million from ABC’s budget, will result in an estimated 200 redundancies.

In an email to staff, managing director David Anderson said, “I think you will agree with me when I say that the current situation with COVID-19 means our focus must be on the welfare of all of you and our role as a public broadcaster in providing the community with timely and credible information in this challenging time for our country.

“For this reason, I’m sure you will understand my decision to postpone the announcement until we are through this period … your patience and professionalism are, as always, greatly appreciated.”

Anderson told employees he would reveal his plan “as soon as we have returned to normal levels of activity”.[…]

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“NASA’s solar probe reveals stunning results”

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Artist’s Image of Parker Solar Probe via NASA

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Marty, who shares the following article from Popular Science:

NASA’s solar probe reveals stunning results after swooping in close to the sun

Rogue plasma waves and sideways, 100,000-mile-per-hour solar winds abound.

The sky is full of stars, but only one sits within our reach. Even as close as it is, the sun poses plenty of mysteries that can’t be solved from Earth. Odd patterns in sunlight during solar eclipses suggest that the corona, the sun’s outermost bit of atmosphere, inexplicably burns hundreds of times hotter than its surface. And while researchers can catch whiffs of the solar wind—streams of charged particles emanating from the sun—here on Earth, a lot of valuable data washes away by the time it blows by us. Getting measurements from right up next to the sun is a better way to understand our giant, burning ball of gas.

That’s why NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has spent the last year swooping closer and closer to the sun. In its first two passes it encountered new features that may help explain both the corona’s extreme heat and the origins of the solar wind, researchers announced on Wednesday in a series of four publications in Nature. As humanity’s first close encounter with a stellar environment continues, further observations will help researchers better understand how solar weather affects Earth, as well as how all stars age and die.

“We needed to go right to the source,” said Nicola Fox, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in a press conference on Wednesday.

In November 2018 and April of this year, two of Parker’s orbits brought it closer to the sun than any spacecraft had been before. Diving toward the sun and looping around the back, the probe reached about 15 million miles from the star’s surface—roughly six times closer than the distance between the sun and the Earth. At the shortest parts of its dive, the probe matched the speed of the sun’s rotation, in effect hovering above its surface. “We just sit over it, and let that part of the sun kind of wash over us,” says Kelly Korreck, head of Science Operations for one of Parker’s instrument suites that measures the solar wind.

Up close, the sun’s magnetic field and solar wind are both much more intense compared to what researchers can measure here on Earth, giving Parker an alien environment to explore. Korreck likens the craft’s experiences in the strong magnetic field to those of a diver entering the sea. “It’s kind of like going underwater,” she says. “Things sound different. You get different physics effects.”

Two features in particular came as surprises. The first were what the researchers are calling “rogue waves” in the magnetic field, which Parker registered as spikes in intensity and reversals in direction lasting for seconds to minutes as they rolled over the spacecraft. Dubbed Alfvén waves after Hannes Alfvén, a Swedish plasma physicist who won the 1970 Nobel prize in physics for their description, the phenomenon had been observed from Earth but never with such strength.[…]

Click here to continue reading the full article at Popular Science.

Also, check out this video from NASA:

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NASA publishes free eBook: Earth At Night

“NASA considers this 80-year-old radio buff part of the astronaut family”

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(Source: ABC News via Michael Bird)

To NASA personnel, he is VK5ZAI. To his neighbours at Pinks Beach, a small coastal town in South Australia, he goes by Tony.

In his 30-year association with the US space agency, Tony Hutchison has been called upon to help in times of crisis, moderate calls between astronauts and their families, and run a worldwide schools program.

He’s shared a beer with first commanders, had barbecues with mission specialists, and watched the space shuttle launch from the bleachers at Kennedy Space Centre.

Looking back, it’s a life he never expected.

Mr Hutchison, 80, fell in love with radio at age 10, had his amateur radio licence by 21, and became involved with satellite communication a few years later.

In October 1992 he made his first contact in space — cosmonaut Anatoly Solovyev onboard the Mir space station.

“You could talk up to them as they passed over and they’d talk back to you.”

He became good friends with one of them, Aleksandr Serebrov.

“He would call me probably a couple times a week as he passed over. Of course they keep to Russian time, which is almost the opposite time to us, so it would be in the middle of the night and Alex would call.”

NASA eventually caught on and had Mr Hutchison doing communications for Andy Thomas while he was onboard Mir.[…]

Click here to continue reading the full story.

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SSTV Special Event from the International Space Station on Saturday, October 27

A free book (PDF) on sun-earth interaction

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Eric (WD8RIF), who writes:

This came in the most recent ARRL Contest newsletter:

The Sun, The Earth, and Near-Earth Space: A Guide to the Sun-Earth System by J. A. Eddy is a readable and accessible textbook that explains the dynamics of the Sun and its interaction with the Earth’s ionosphere. It’s available as a free download, courtesy of NASA and the International Living with a Star Program. Anyone using the ionosphere as a medium for radio wave transmission and wants to better understand propagation should find this book of interest. (Ward, N0AX)

Thank you for the stellar tip, Eric!

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The Voyager twins: weak signals and discovery from the depths of space

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Artist’s concept of Voyager I (Source: NASA)

Yesterday, while listening to the BBC World Service, I heard this fascinating documentary focusing on the Voyager I and II spacecraft. It absolutely blows my mind that both of these spacecraft have been operating for 40 years and continue to send signals back to Earth. Talk about weak signal DX!

Note that you will have to visit the BBC World Service website to listen to the documentary via their media player.

(Source: BBC World Service)

Voyager 1 and 2: Still operating after 40 years in the depths of space. Voyager 1 is currently some 20 billion kilometres from Earth travelling at 15.5 kilometres a second. It takes 19 hours for a signal from the spacecraft’s 20 watt transmitter to reach home. Voyager 2 is 17 billion kilometres away and will soon leave the Solar System.

Launched in 1977, the twin spacecrafts have explored the giant planets and their strange moons, investigated the boundary of the Solar System and changed how we see our place in the Universe. The probes even carry a message for aliens in the form of a golden record.

Retired NASA astronaut Ron Garan meets many of the original team still working on the mission, nursing the twin spacecraft through their final years.

Click here to listen to the documentary via the BBC World Service website.

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