@proceedings {975, title = {Incorporating HamSCI Project into a College Physics Course: A Progress Report}, year = {2025}, month = {03/2025}, publisher = {HamSCI}, address = {Newark, NJ}, abstract = {

We report on citizen science activities in a physics course and Space Force ROTC training designed to engage undergraduate students and cadets in the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) project. The New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Physics Department offers a senior-level lab course, "Advanced Physics Lab," where students are expected to gain hands-on experience with experimental techniques, instrumentation, theoretical and applied electronics, solid-state electronic devices, and experiments in modern physics by performing quantitative measurements of fundamental physical parameters. In this lab, students work in a largely unstructured environment, where they are provided with equipment and related manuals to conduct experiments with minimal instructor supervision. Traditionally, students have followed preset lab setups, guided by the manuals that accompany the equipment. While this approach helps students relate lab results to established physics theories and principles, its impact has been limited due to a lack of "hands-on" experience and real-world application demonstrations. The HamSCI PSWS project provides an excellent opportunity to address this gap. Through the project, students build and test scientific instruments, using them for investigations that engage them directly in scientific inquiry. This paper presents an evaluation of the impact of this undergraduate class activity on future workforce development, utilizing HamSCI resources.

}, author = {Hyomin Kim and Jeremy McLynch and Joseph Visone and Dominick Santelli and Sergio Santelli and Gareth Perry and Nathaniel Frissell and Gary Mikitin and John Gibbons and David Witten} } @proceedings {956, title = {Understanding HamSCI Magnetometers Measurements and Observations}, year = {2025}, month = {03/2025}, publisher = {HamSCI}, address = {Newark, NJ}, abstract = {

Measurements and observations are important to any project. Understanding where the measurements came from and how they are collected is vital. In this presentation, we will aim to describe what a magnetometer is, how it works, and what information it can tell us about space weather/physics. We will focus on what measurements and observations we can collect from the magnetometers{\textendash} specifically HamSCI magnetometers as various magnetometers will have different capabilities. Furthermore, we will outline an experimental procedure to help the user better understand the collected measurements and observations from the HamSCI magnetometer. We will focus on some questions such as, what can HamSCI magnetometer measurements and observations tell us? How do we know good vs bad HamSCI magnetometer data? Do we need to calibrate the measurements and observations of the HamSCI magnetometer data? Why do we collect three components of the magnetic field yet primarily use only the horizontal component. How does the internal magnetic field of the Earth impact the magnetic field around the Earth? Where can we see and access the raw measurements and observations from the HamSCI magnetometers? How are the measurements and observations displayed? By answering these questions and outlining the experiment(s), we hope to provide an education guide to help users better understand how the HamSCI magnetometers record observations and measurements and what insight they can give us into better understanding various space weather/physics phenomena.

}, author = {Rachel Frissell and Nathaniel Frissell and Majid Mokhtari and David Witten and Hyomin Kim} } @proceedings {820, title = {Citizen Science: Development of a Low-Cost Magnetometer System for a Coordinated Space Weather Monitoring}, year = {2024}, month = {03/2024}, publisher = {HamSCI}, address = {Cleveland, OH}, abstract = {

As part of Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) project, a low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf magnetometer has been developed to provide quantitative and qualitative measurements of the geospace environment from the ground for both scientific and operational purposes at a cost that will allow for crowd-sourced data contributions. The PSWS magnetometers employ a magneto-inductive sensor technology to record three-axis magnetic field variations with a field resolution of ~3 nT at a 1 Hz sample rate. Crowd-sourced data from the PSWS systems will be collected into a central archive for the purpose of public access and analyzation along with space weather research. Ultimately, data from the PSWS network will combine the magnetometer measurements with high frequency (HF, 3-30 MHz) radio observations to monitor large scale current systems and ionospheric disturbances and events due to drivers from space and the atmosphere alike. A densely-spaced magnetometer array, once established, will demonstrate their space weather monitoring capability to an unprecedented spatial extent. Magnetic field data obtained by the magnetometers installed at various locations in the US are presented and compared with the existing magnetometers nearby, demonstrating that the performance is entirely satisfactory for scientific investigations.

}, author = {Joseph Visone and Hyomin Kim and David Witten and Julius Madey and Nathaniel A. Frissell and John Gibbons and William D. Engelke and Anderson Liddle and Nicholas Muscolino and Zhaoshu Cao} } @proceedings {762, title = {Development of HamSCI PSWS Ground Magnetometer and Data Visualization on the PSWS Central Website}, year = {2023}, month = {03/2023}, publisher = {HamSCI}, address = {Scranton, PA}, author = {Hyomin Kim and Nathaniel A. Frissell and David Witten and Julius Madey and William D. Engelke and Tom Holmes and Majid Mokhtari and Scotty Cowling and Anderson Liddle and Nicholas Muscolino and Zhaoshu Cao} } @proceedings {650, title = {Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Coupling Studies Using the PSWS Magnetometer Network}, year = {2022}, month = {03/2022}, publisher = {HamSCI}, address = {Huntsville, AL}, abstract = {

As part of HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) project, a low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf magnetometer, which measures magnetic field strength and direction, has been developed to provide quantitative and qualitative measurements of the geospace environment from the ground for both scientific and operational purposes at a cost that will allow for crowd-sourced data contributions. The PSWS magnetometers employ a magneto-inductive sensor technology to record three-axis magnetic field variations with a field resolution of ~6 nT at a 1 Hz sample rate. Data from the PSWS network will combine these magnetometer measurements with high frequency (HF, 3-30 MHz) radio observations to monitor large-scale current systems and ionospheric disturbances due to drivers from both space and the atmosphere. A densely-spaced magnetometer array, once established, will demonstrate their space weather monitoring capability to an unprecedented spatial extent. Magnetic field data obtained by the magnetometers installed at various locations in the US are presented and compared with the existing magnetometers nearby, demonstrating that its performance is very adequate for scientific investigations.

}, author = {Hyomin Kim and Sadaf Ansari and Julius Madey and David Witten and David Larsen and Scotty Cowling and Nathaniel Frissell and James Weygand} } @conference {540, title = {HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS): Architecture and Current Status}, booktitle = {NSF CEDAR (Coupling, Energetics, and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions)}, year = {2021}, month = {06/2021}, publisher = {CEDAR}, organization = {CEDAR}, address = {Virtual}, abstract = {

Recent advances in geospace remote sensing have shown that large-scale distributed networks of ground-based sensors pay large dividends by providing a big picture view of phenomena that were previously observed only by point-measurements. While existing instrument networks provide excellent insight into ionospheric and space science, the system remains undersampled and more observations are needed to advance understanding. In an effort to generate these additional measurements, the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI, hamsci.org) is working with the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio Corporation (TAPR, tapr.org), an engineering organization comprised of volunteer amateur radio operators and engineers, to develop a network of Personal Space Weather Stations (PSWS). These instruments that will provide scientific-grade observations of signals-of-opportunity across the HF bands from volunteer citizen observers as part of the NSF Distributed Array of Small Instruments (DASI) program. A performance-driven PSWS design (~US$500) will be a modular, multi-instrument device that will consist of a dual-channel phase-locked 0.1-60 MHz software defined radio (SDR) receiver, a ground magnetometer with (~10 nT resolution and 1-sec cadence), and GPS/GNSS receiver to provide precision time stamping and serve as a GPS disciplined oscillator (GPSDO) to provide stability to the SDR receiver. A low-cost PSWS (\< US$100) that measures Doppler shift of HF signals received from standards stations such as WWV (US) and CHU (Canada) and includes a magnetometer is also being developed. HF sounding algorithms making use of signals of opportunity will be developed for the SDR-based PSWS. All measurements will be collected into a central database for coordinated analysis and made available for public access.

}, author = {Nathaniel A. Frissell and Dev Joshi and Veronica I. Romanek and Kristina V. Collins and Aidan Montare and David Kazdan and John Gibbons and William D. Engelke and Travis Atkison and Hyomin Kim and Scott H. Cowling and Thomas C. McDermott and John Ackermann and David Witten and Julius Madey and H. Ward Silver and William Liles and Steven Cerwin and Philip J. Erickson and Ethan S. Miller and Juha Vierinen} }