NASA’s been recruiting citizen scientists recently, and their newest name is in search of assist from ham radio operators. They need you to make and report radio contacts through the 2023 and 2024 North American eclipses. From their web site:

Communication is feasible resulting from interactions between our Solar and the ionosphere, the ionized area of the Earth’s ambiance situated roughly 80 to 1000 km overhead. The upcoming eclipses (October 14, 2023, and April 8, 2024) present distinctive alternatives to check these interactions. As you and different HamSCI members transmit, obtain, and file alerts throughout the radio spectrum through the eclipse, you’ll create useful information to check pc fashions of the ionosphere.

The upcoming eclipses are in October of this yr and in April 2024, so you have got a while to get your station so as. In response to NASA, “It will likely be a enjoyable, pleasant occasion with a aggressive factor.” So when you like science, house, or contesting, it sounds such as you’ll have an interest. Proper now, the massive occasion is the Photo voltaic Eclipse QSO Social gathering. There can even be a sign recognizing problem and a few measurements of WWV, CHU, AM broadcast stations, and measurements of the ionosphere peak. There can even be some kind of very low-frequency occasion. Particulars on many of those occasions are nonetheless pending.

Hams, in fact, have an extended historical past of experimenting with house. They routinely bounce alerts off the moon. In addition they let radio alerts bounce off the trails of ionized fuel behind meteors utilizing particular pc applications.