08/25/2026
By Lynne Schaufenbil

Please join the Lowell Center for Space Science and Technology for the first seminar of the Fall 2026 semester, “HamSCI and the Personal Space Weather Project,” by Dr. Jay Weitzen, professor and chair emeritus, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on Thursday, Sept. 3, at 11 a.m.

The purpose of this talk is to introduce researchers to HamSCI and how we might want to collaborate. HamSCI, the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation, is a platform for the publicity and promotion of projects that are consistent with the following objectives:

  • Advance scientific research and understanding through amateur radio activities
  • Encourage the development of new technologies to support this research
  • Provide educational opportunities for the amateur community and the public

HamSCI serves as a means for fostering collaborations between professional researchers and amateur radio operators. It assists in developing and maintaining standards and agreements between all people and organizations involved.

This talk introduces you to the many projects being undertaken by HamSCI, with a focus on the Personal Space Weather System. The goal of this project is to do “small science on a very large scale.”

The Personal Space Weather Station project ultimately aims to create a small, multi-instrument system that can make ground-based measurements of the space environment. The observations from this project will not only be useful to the owner of the system but also aggregated into a central database for space science and space weather research purposes. Initial work focuses on the development of a scientific-grade high-frequency (HF) radio receiver, as well as the necessary software and network infrastructure. This project is in collaboration with the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio, Inc. (TAPR), Case Western Reserve University / Case Amateur Radio Club W8EDU, the University of Alabama, the New Jersey Institute of Technology Center for Solar Terrestrial Research (NJIT-CSTR), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Haystack Observatory.

If you are interested in joining either in person or via Zoom, please email Lynne_Schaufenbil@uml.edu.