The Deep Space Exploration Society will sponsor its second of two rounds of competitions in the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) International Earth-Moon-Earth (EME) contest on Friday, November 15th and Saturday, November 16th at their Haswell 60’ dish antenna site. The goal of the contest is to see how many contacts from other stations can be collected from around the country and the world in a 48-hour period.
The Earth-Moon-Earth International competition is a challenge that allows amateur ham radio operators to try to communicate beyond their means as frequencies typically operated on are in the microwave band and don’t go long distances. But by learning how to communicate with an EME method, more and longer-distance communications can be achieved.
Contacts can only happen when the site can see the moon, so heavy cloud coverage and storms will wipe out the opportunity to send messages. For the upcoming Earth-Moon-Earth contest at the dish site the moon will rise (Moonrise) at 5:17pm on Friday, November 15th and set (Moonset) at 7:30am on Saturday, November 16th. Then on November 16th the moonrise is at 6:08pm and the moonset is on Sunday, November 17th at 8:40 am. During the time the moon is up the ham radio team will be sending out, and collecting, messages.
According to Paul Soban, one of the DSES members competing at the Haswell station, “There are hundreds of stations around the world that compete in this international event. The event this weekend is considered Part 2—a continuation of the first competition we were in last month on October 19 and 20—and will be the final part of the event.”
Soban and his team invites anyone from around the area who are interested to attend the EME contest at the Haswell station from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm both evenings. “We encourage folks to bring their children along as we will be serving hot chocolate and cookies for the attendees, and those who attend will be able to see all the different ways we communicate bouncing ham radio messages off the moon.”
The Deep Space Exploration radio dish antenna site is located at 9301 Delores Lane on County Road 20, just south of Haswell 4 miles on what is known locally as the Las Animas road. There is a new building at the site, which was finished last summer, that is spacious and comfortable enough to host many visitors.
Sobon and his team are hoping that this weekend the night sky will be cloudless and clear which will make for some exceedingly impressive communication opportunities. The Earth-Moon-Earth contest premise is to send a message, an actual audio message, to the moon, where the message is reflected off the moon’s surface and directed to whatever station in the country, or across the world, the team chooses to communicate with. If the message is received, a success message of “R”, meaning “Roger”, or “73” meaning “Best Regards” will be sent to the Haswell station. At that point, Sobon’s team can add it to their list of successful communications completed. Of course, on the other side of the coin, stations from across the country and world will be trying to send messages to Haswell—so the team is going to be quite busy sending and receiving messages.
Sobon describes the progression of sending messages as dependent on the location of the moon in the sky. Typically, when they begin the EME transmissions they will point their radio antenna east to the horizon directed at other ham radio operators in Eastern Europe. Then as the dish follows the moon higher into the sky towards the west, Australia, Japan, and even China sites will be sent messages. Other contacts, later in the night and into the next morning will be in western Russia, Poland, and Sweden. They believe they might be able to communicate with a station located in Antarctica.
The Independent asked Sobon how Part 1 of the competition in October went for the Haswell team. Sobon laughed and said, “Well, there’s a bit of a story behind that.”
Sobon then told the story of how NAPA (no not NASA), the Eads NAPA specifically, saved the Earth-Moon-Earth competition in October. The story is also about the persistence and ingenuity of these amateur ham radio operators who had to not only battle the weather elements and isolation in this part of the world, but also mechanical malfunctions, as well.
On Friday, October 18, Sobon and one other team member Alex Nersesyan from Phoenix, AZ arrived at the Haswell site around 5:00 pm. Everything at the Haswell site seemed to be in order, so they put the dish in the “birdbath” position, which Sobon explains is the safest position for the dish when not being controlled and decided to drive the 20 miles to Eads to have dinner at JJs Restaurant while they waited for the moonrise.
They soon realized that a storm was blowing to the west so they headed back to Haswell anxiously watching the weather radar. Sobon said, “Then it started to rain before we got there. By the time we got back to the Haswell dish site it was pouring. Then the hail started along with the rain. It was so loud inside the bunker that we couldn’t believe it and water was starting to come in under the door.”
About the time they realized there was no way they would be able to start the EME contest that night, they heard a knock at the door. They couldn’t believe it, but a third member of their team, Larry Stewart from Chicago, IL, had found his way to the site in the dark stormy night. They welcomed him in, and they settled down waiting for the storm and heavy cloud coverage to clear.
By morning they were ready to check on their equipment and the radio telescope to make sure it would all work for the coming night’s competition. They were already way behind the rest of the world because of the weather situation.
But the dish wouldn’t move. Alex climbed up inside the pedestal of the dish and found a broken chain hanging over some other wires. One would think that this was a major problem as it was unlikely anyone would have a replacement chain for a 60’ dish built during the Cold War, and it wasn’t likely that it could be easily replaced and then installed before the Moonrise. Their chances to compete in the EME were quickly dwindling.
But on the off chance, the three ham radio guys headed back to Eads and ended up at NAPA.
“We met Logan at the parts store and told him we needed a chain for a 60-foot dish. He said, ‘A what?’ But once he had a chance to look at the broken chain we had brought he went upstairs and came back with the correct length of chain we needed. We couldn’t believe it!”
They quickly drove back to Haswell.
According to Paul, “The chain was too short!”
So, they headed back to Eads for a second visit with Logan at NAPA. This time they got the right length and added in some electrical tape just in case and headed back to Haswell.
This time it worked! “Alex was in the top of the dish, Larry at the bottom of the dish outside, and I was running it from inside the building.”
Through all that, they were able to receive 90 contacts on Saturday night and were thrilled with their results. They were also able to work with a fourth member of the Deep Space Exploration Society, Mark Drayton, who was in western Australia. Drayton had visited the Haswell site previously so on that Saturday night—into Sunday—he was excited to connect remotely with their system.
The Deep Space Exploration Society has three main focuses which are radio astronomy, amateur radio activities, and space science education. They are excited that more than 100 people attended their open house in early October. They now hope that anyone interested in becoming an amateur ham radio operator will reach out to them this weekend and see what it’s all about.
Paul says, becoming a ham radio operator is fairly simple. He would love to get all interested people into a membership into the DSES and teach them how to do ham radio. To start, you could attend the Earth-Moon-Earth event this weekend. You can also access the Deep Space Exploration Society website where lots of resources are available.
Once you get your ham radio license you too can talk to Paul NO0T, Larry N7LWS, Alex K6VHF, and Mark VK6PY and join in the fun of communicating via EME.
