Hello there, my dear readers. The holidays are in full swing, and there's no shortage of snow on the ground. It's truly a magical time.
My friends, I have a pretty big announcement for you. I just got the news, myself, and I can't wait to share it.
Over the last year and a half, we have dedicated a good portion of our lives to Operation: First Contact. Reading back in this blog can give you an idea of the amount of work we've put into this project. It hasn't always been an easy road that we've travelled, but it sure was rewarding.
All our hard work... everything we've worked so hard for... it's all about to pay off.
I just got the email confirming that we have a window for our contact! Clear your calendars, because sometime between February 2 and February 9 we are going to make history!
As a group, we're going to take a little time to collect ourselves over the holidays. When we get back, though, we are going to push harder than we ever have in preparation for the big day.
As you know, on the day of contact we will be asking questions to the astronauts on the International Space Station. We figured that it would be selfish of us to ask all the questions without involving the school. I'm sure that there's a lot of you out there who would love the chance to ask your own questions. This January, we are going to be hosting a contest. In a nutshell, students from Humber College will be able to submit questions to us. Whoever has the best question will be able to ask the questions themselves when we make contact. Imagine being able to say you talked to someone in space!
Check back here in the new year, and we'll have everything ready to go! In the meantime, I hope that everyone has an amazing holiday season, and a most awesome new year!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Episode XIX: Random Happenings
Hey there, everyone. I must apologize for the lack up updates around here lately. I got into a bit of a funk where I got nothing done, I almost destroyed my computer, went into another funk, and now I'm being bombarded by exams! I'll write something a little more substantial as soon as things let up for now. For now, though, here's what's been going on lately.
The last few weeks have been pretty kind for Operation: First Contact. We've completed construction of our primary station, and we're performing all our testing to make sure that everything is behaving the way its expected to.
We pointed our antenna to true north, which is 10 degrees and 45 minutes west of magnetic north. What does that mean? The earth's magnetic poles are constantly moving in an arc-shaped pattern, taking 25,000 years to complete a rotation. This means that magnetic north is constantly changing. True north, on the other hand, is in a fixed position right at the top of the globe. True north is where all the lines of longitude intersect.
One small problem we've fixed is the polarization of our antenna. Last week, we were up on the roof making some adjustments to our antenna in the freezing rain and snow. We noted that our antenna was set up for left-handed circular polarization. After doing a little research, we discovered that we should be set up for right-handed circular polarization.
Also, we're in the process of implementing a new piece of equipment into our communication system, called a TNC (terminal node controller). This magic box will allow us to exchange data packets back and forth with the space station. We're in the testing phases with it, but you should expect to hear more about that in my next update.
We've been in contact with a gentleman named Steve who works for ARISS. From what I've heard, he'll be coming from Ottawa to take a look at our setup sometime in the beginning of January. We're all pretty excited about that. It's nice to have tangible proof of our progress.
If anyone has access to current issues of Humber's newspapers, there's a great article in Humber Etcetera about the space station's new urine recycling system. Also, there's a pretty great article in Radix about our project. I'd like to express my thanks to Kristine Mason and Angelo Elia for writing up some pretty great articles.
I'd also like to send a shout-out to anyone from Carl Oliver's physics class. I'll be talking to them about some stuff tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure a great time will be had by all.
For those of you still in school, good luck on your exams! For everyone else, have a great holiday!
The last few weeks have been pretty kind for Operation: First Contact. We've completed construction of our primary station, and we're performing all our testing to make sure that everything is behaving the way its expected to.
We pointed our antenna to true north, which is 10 degrees and 45 minutes west of magnetic north. What does that mean? The earth's magnetic poles are constantly moving in an arc-shaped pattern, taking 25,000 years to complete a rotation. This means that magnetic north is constantly changing. True north, on the other hand, is in a fixed position right at the top of the globe. True north is where all the lines of longitude intersect.
One small problem we've fixed is the polarization of our antenna. Last week, we were up on the roof making some adjustments to our antenna in the freezing rain and snow. We noted that our antenna was set up for left-handed circular polarization. After doing a little research, we discovered that we should be set up for right-handed circular polarization.
Also, we're in the process of implementing a new piece of equipment into our communication system, called a TNC (terminal node controller). This magic box will allow us to exchange data packets back and forth with the space station. We're in the testing phases with it, but you should expect to hear more about that in my next update.
We've been in contact with a gentleman named Steve who works for ARISS. From what I've heard, he'll be coming from Ottawa to take a look at our setup sometime in the beginning of January. We're all pretty excited about that. It's nice to have tangible proof of our progress.
If anyone has access to current issues of Humber's newspapers, there's a great article in Humber Etcetera about the space station's new urine recycling system. Also, there's a pretty great article in Radix about our project. I'd like to express my thanks to Kristine Mason and Angelo Elia for writing up some pretty great articles.
I'd also like to send a shout-out to anyone from Carl Oliver's physics class. I'll be talking to them about some stuff tomorrow afternoon. I'm sure a great time will be had by all.
For those of you still in school, good luck on your exams! For everyone else, have a great holiday!
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