This page describes my trip to the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) conference at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia (NRAO Green Bank). The conference was three days and I had a great time meeting people, going to lectures, and using the government facilities to do real observations. If you click on any of the pictures below they are links to a larger image so you can get a closer look. you will have to use your browsers "back" button while viewing a picture to get back to this page because I am too lazy to make a nice link for you.

This year was the 20th Anniversary of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA). We had a meeting in Green Bank, West Virginia at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). Here is a picture of the sign at the entrance to the facility.

So what does one do at a Radio Astronomy Conference you might ask? We spent our days in this building, known as the Karl Janksy Laboratory, listening to lectures from professional astronomers and physicists, and enjoying presentations from the members of the club.

In this picture, you can see the dormitories on the left and the cafeteria on the right. You can also see the row of bicycles near the dorm entrance. These were provided as a courtesy and our main mode of transportation around the site!

On the second floor of the dormitories above the entrance, we have the Frank Drake lounge. Where you see a fireplace in this picture now, there used to be a chalk board. It is said that this is where he introduced the now famous Drake Equation. This room also has a small kitchen, library, and the obligatory chalkboard full of equations.

The Green Bank staff were extremely accomodating to our club. One nice thing they did was to turn over some of their older surplus equipment to our club for our projects! We drew names out of a hat to decide who got what. Here we see everyone perusing the boxes to see what they might grab in the raffle.

Oh boy, more lectures! Can you believe the good fortune? Here we are listening to a talk by Gary Anderson on the calibration of the 327 mHz feed for the 100 meter Green Bank Telescope.

Radio Telescopes are extremely sensitive instruments. The spark plugs from the combustion engine in an automobile can be disruptive to the receivers that make up the "back end" of the scope. For this reason, cars are not allowed near the dishes.

Not to worry, we have an alternate means of transportation...diesel powered cars courtesy of Uncle Sam! Let's go for a ride...

This is the 40 foot Radio Telescope where we spent our evenings (and much of the night for that matter). We are entering this small building that is halfway below ground.

Here are the back end electronics for the 40 foot dish. Electromagnetic energy received at the dish is converted from RF (Radio Frequency) to IF (Intermediate Frequency) by mixing it with the output from an oscillator. The IF signal then comes into the rack to my right where it can be attenuated and/or strengthened, and finally turned into a voltage that we can see on the strip chart (printout)! How exciting is that? Here I get a chance to do some observing. The strip chart is nice, but they have since updated everything to computer control (not pictured), including the data collection, which I much prefer.

Finally, we have are taken down to see the larget radio telescope in the world. I think these pictures really don't do it justice. This structure weighs around 16 million tons and is taller than the Statue of Liberty. I counted twenty stories up just to get to the bottom of the dish!

Once again our professional counterparts at NRAO come through with the guided tour. The people on the regular tours had to stay outside the fence a quarter of a mile away! Certainly a strong argument for seeking club membership.