@proceedings {976,
	title = {University of Scranton W3USR Teaching Amateur Radio at the Lackawanna Blind Association},
	year = {2025},
	month = {03/2025},
	publisher = {HamSCI},
	address = {Newark, NJ},
	abstract = {<p>Access to amateur radio can be life-changing for individuals who are blind or visually impaired. Radio communication provides an accessible, independent, and engaging way to connect with others; it helps foster both technical skills and social interactions. The University of Scranton W3USR, working in collaboration with local amateur radio operators and the Lackawanna Blind Association (LBA), has launched a program to teach amateur radio to people who are blind and visually impaired using the Handiham curriculum. This initiative enables blind and visually impaired individuals to engage with and become licensed amateur radio operators through an accessible learning experience that they look forward to each week. This project has support from all different angles and has shown some promising results.</p>
},
	author = {Thomas Pisano and Owen Ruzanski and Alexandros Papadopoulos and Lucero Alvarez and Ken Martin and William Gallagher and Christine Zakzewski and Nathaniel Frissell}
}
@proceedings {858,
	title = {Analysis of the HamSCI Solar Eclipse High Frequency Time Difference of Arrival Experiment Observations Using Automated Techniques},
	year = {2024},
	month = {03/2024},
	publisher = {HamSCI},
	address = {Cleveland, OH},
	abstract = {<p>The objective of our research is to analyze the effects of a solar eclipse on High Frequency (HF) radio by extracting the time difference of arrival (TDOA) due to multiple ionospheric paths of ~3 kHz bandwidth chirp signals sent and received with unmodified commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) single sideband (SSB) amateur radio transceivers. We use programming techniques learned in the Digital Signal Processing course at The University of Scranton in the Python language to automate this process. On the day of the 14 October 2023 eclipse in Texas, WA5FRF transmitted a series of chirps every 15 minutes to receiving stations N5DUP and AB5YO on 5.3 MHz and 7.2 MHz. Received signals were digitized, then squared and low-pass filtered to detect the waveform envelope. Correlation with a matched signal is then used to identify the start time of each chirp, after which a Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is used to identify the beat-frequency (and TDOA value) generated by the multipath propagation. This TDOA value is then used to compute an ionospheric reflection height. On the WA5FRF-N5DUP path, this analysis shows that the F region reflection point raised from 262.5 km at 17:00 UTC to 300 km at eclipse maximum at 17:30 UTC and then returned to approximately 280 km at 18:00 UTC. This result is in good agreement with the hmF2 observations of the Austin ionosonde.</p>
},
	author = {Alexandros Papadopoulos and Gerrard Piccini and Thomas Pisano and Nicholas Guerra and Matthew Felicia and Evan Hromisin and Aidan Montare and Kristina Collins and Paul Bilberry and Samuel Blackshear and Steve Cerwin and Nathaniel A. Frissell}
}
