Scranton’s Historic HamSCI Field Exercise
University of Scranton students Declan Reavy, left, and Owen Ruzanski sit inside an operating station at K3LR in West Middlesex. Reavy, Ruzanski and other University students and faculty members earlier this month toured and worked the K3LR “super station.”The University of Scranton’s Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) team recently returned from a trip to K3LR, an amateur radio “super station” in West Middlesex, where they participated in hands-on learning and strengthened their ties in a network of enthusiasts.
During their visit in early August, members of the University’s HamSCI student club presented research, toured the advanced engineering setup at K3LR and even operated the station themselves.
The trip, which was done in support of and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA research projects, was the first multi-day exercise ever for HamSCI.
Technical work included assembling an antenna, burying a magnetometer and laying cables, installing instrumentation to support the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) project funded by the NSF Distributed Array of Small Instrument (DASI) program. Scranton is the lead institution on this grant, which includes four collaborating universities. One of the collaborators, Case Western Reserve University, also participated in the K3LR trip, which served as an opportunity to further the two institutions’ partnership.
In addition to the technical work, HamSCI members received a two-hour tour of the K3LR antenna farm. The site has 14 towers — some over 200 feet tall — and 50-plus antenna systems.
K3LR owner Tim Duffy, a longtime ham radio operator, hosted the University club and other guests. The hospitality from Duffy, who serves as CEO of DX Engineering, one of the leading amateur radio suppliers, extended to hosting the HamSCI members overnight and providing them with meals and stories from a career that has included a tenure as Radio Club of America (RCA) president and RCA Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio service award recipient.
University students and staff will bring lessons learned from the trip back to the Loyola Science Center, which houses a state-of-the-art amateur radio station that serves HamSCI and the W3USR amateur radio club.
The following students attended the memorable trip, accompanied by Nathaniel Frissell, Ph.D., associate professor of physics and engineering; Robert Spalletta, Ph.D., professor of physics and engineering; Majid Mokhtari, senior laboratory engineer, physics and engineering; and Scranton community volunteers Ken Martin and Bob Nicolais:
Owen Ruzanski, a computer engineering major from Shohola
Nina Tormann, a physics major from Macungie
Rebecca Potter, a physics and philosophy double major from Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey
Declan Reavy, a physics major from Trucksville
