Hamming it up at the eclipse (New York)

Inside the Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory’s Roll-Off-Roof-Observatory on Friday, amid an auditory cloud of radio chatter, machine tones and static hum, Marc Staves picked up his ham radio mic and spoke into it.

“Whiskey. Alpha. Two. Echo. Whisky. Yankee. WA2EWY club station,” Staves said.

After giving his location in Tupper Lake to the net controller, he told people listening from around the East Coast about how amateur radio operators in the Tri-Lakes are preparing for the April 8 total solar eclipse. Tupper Lake is just south of center in the path of totality.

While they take in the rare sight of the moon blocking out the sun, Staves said they will also be capitalizing on the rare chance to study a total solar eclipse’s effects on the Earth’s ionosphere and providing that data to researchers at universities and NASA.

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