In Rotterdam

I'm up here with Billy on a violin gig. Beautiful place! Will descrbe
on next podcast. 73

Radio Signals from Jupiter and Io on 17 Meters

Jupiter and Io montage captured by the New horizons spacecraft.
The Jupiter image is false-color near IR data obtained with the LEISA instrument, built at GSFC.

I try to always read the QRP-L postings of NA5N -- Paul always has something interesting in his messages. Today I found this:
Jupiter emissions peak around 18-22MHz; they are a function of when the moon Io crosses certain longitudes of the relatively fast spinning Jupiter. There used to be a couple of calculators online (haven't checked lately) as to when the L-bursts should occur. The timing is quite predictable; detecting them on every predicted occurrence is not. You have to have an antenna with a little bit of gain. The signals are generally weaker (that is, near the atmospheric noise level) than can be detected with a dipole. With a fairly decent setup, the Jovian L-bursts sounds like ocean waves crashing on a distant beach, just barely above the noise level. The S-bursts sounds like random pulse type static in short bursts. These are harder to detect than the L-bursts.

I had known about the Jovian radio emissions, but I didn't know that the moon Io was involved. For me, Io's involvement somehow makes this even more interesting. Jupiter and its moons (including Io) are some of the few celestial objects I can regularly see from central Rome.

Here is a good description of Jupiter's radio signals, and Io's role in transmitting them:
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/sci_briefs/decametric.htm

And here is an interesting article about the discovery (50 years ago) of these signals:
http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/sci_briefs/discovery.html

SolderSmoke Podcast #108

http://www.soldersmoke.com

In SolderSmoke 108:

May 24, 2009
Hubble Space Telescope Repair Mission
WSPR: W3PM sees my sigs, back to visual (briefly), on to Slow Hell.
Ubuntu ham radio software
Time nuts
Jean Shepherd gets his Class A license
"SolderSmoke -- The Book" Good for summer vacation reading.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM DAYTON - FDIM BY BOB W8SX
MAILBAG

CHECK OUT THE BOOK: (First chapter preview available)

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/soldersmoke/6743576



73 from Rome

Tech Details on ET's "Phone Home" Beacon Rig

Mark "MOJ" Johnson, W8MOJ, sent me a really amazing 73 Magazine article. It is from the APRIL 1983 issue. (The month of publication set off my April-fool alert alarm, but this is for real.) When Steven Spielberg was making ET, the producers contacted Bell Labs and asked for help in designing the rig that ET would use to phone home. A ham, Henry Feinberg, K2SSQ, got the job. In the article, Henry wrote: "What Spielberg wanted was a beacon transmitter, something to say, 'Here I am, Come and get me!' I reasoned that three main parts wee needed for a basic beacon: a means of producing a message, a programmer to repeat the message, and a way of transmitting the signal into outer space."

Later, in describing the keying device, Henry wrote: " The surface of the saw blade was coated with several layers of spray paint, which served as insulation, preventing the bobby pins from contacting the metal blade. The message was programmed on the blade by carefully etching through the paint. "

OK, that does it. Time for me to go back to the Trastevere flea market to pick up some more cheap clock drives... and maybe some circular saw blades. I need to get going on my mechanical QRSS one-transistor becaon project.

REAL Hams Make Their Own Crystals....

Bill: You say you buy your crystals from the electronics store? Real homebrewers grind their own crystals. See attachments. Russ

After reading this I was feeling like a complete APPLIANCE OPERATOR. But wait a second Russ -- that's a KIT! Real homebrewers don't need KITS to make their own crystals! And remember, you are talking to a guy who has used iron pyrite and a phosphor bronze to detect radio waves. That means I have homebrewed my own DIODES! ;-)

Thanks for the cool pictures Russ. Those were the days...

Seeing my WSPR signal

Graham, G3ZOD, sent me this WSPR screen-shot. He writes:

Hi Bill. Thought you might be interested in a screen grab of yourself. You're the near continuous signal along the centre of the waterfall just below 200 on the vertical axis.Not DX from Italy to England, but I'm using an indoor wire antenna and I usually receive you for short periods only - never seen such a consistent signal before. By the way: I think your computer clock may be a couple of seconds off according to the DT values; I have mine resync every 6 hours and my clock is generally within 150 milliseconds.
73 de Graham G3ZOD

Thanks Graham! The consistency of my signal is no doubt due to the fact that I have no receive system here yet, so on the WSPR software, in the "T/R Cycle" box I had "TX" checked. So I was "key down" most of the time. Your screen shot made me realize that this might not be the most neighborly thing to do -- someone else on the same freq might be QRMd by my 20 mW DSB sig. So I think I'll ratchet down the T/R cycle here.
My computer clock is erratic. I have to tweak it each day. I know there is a program out there that automates this -- haven't gotten to that yet. 73 From Rome

Shep's Class A License, Part II

I didn't mean to leave you guys in suspense. Here is the exciting conclusion.
EXCELSIOR!