SETI League Press Release
Green Bank, WV.., March 2006 -- The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA), a sister organization to the nonprofit, membership supported SETI League, is pleased to announce the selection of a Keynote Speaker for its 2006 Annual Meeting, to be held June 18-21, 2006, at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), Green Bank WV. Leading off the technical program will be Dr. Steven W. Ellingson, KI4JJN, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, onetime SARA member, and a highly respected amateur and professional radio astronomer.
A former US Army officer, Steve Ellingson received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering at the Ohio State University, where he was strongly influenced by the legendary radio astronomer Dr. John Kraus, W8JK, as well as Dr. Robert Dixon, W8ERD, whom he credits with "breaking him in" on radio astronomy in the late 1980s. As a Research Scientist at the OSU ElectroScience Laboratory, Steve contributed to work at the Big Ear radio observatory, and to the design of the Argus all-sky radio telescope array. He has served on several important frequency allocation and interference mitigation committees, and is currently adapting software defined radios to meet public safety requirements.
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Steve writes, "My research interests are in the general areas of antennas & propagation, applied signal processing, and instrumentation. I am specifically interested in direction finding, interference mitigation, wireless communications, radio astronomy, and the design of antennas and receivers. I supervise graduate and undergraduate students in Electrical Engineering, who make vital contributions to these projects. Also, I spend a frightening amount of time looking for new projects to keep us all gainfully employed. So much for the laid-back academic lifestyle!" |
Dr. Ellingson's keynote presentation, tentatively scheduled for 10 AM on Monday, 19 June 2006, is titled "The Strange Renaissance in Low-Frequency Radio Astronomy." He will discuss his recent excitements in LF science, his current project "ETA" (an Eight-meter-wavelength Transient Array), and what helpful things amateurs might do in this area. You can read more about this work on his professional website, at http://www.ece.vt.edu/swe/eta.
At its 2006 gathering, Steve will be helping SARA to celebrate the club's 25th Anniversary. SETI League members and guests have been invited to participate in this landmark meeting.
Largely using radio telescopes and optical telescopes, SETI scientists seek to determine whether humankind is alone in the universe. Since Congress terminated NASA's SETI funding in 1993, The SETI League and other scientific groups have privatized the research. Amateur and professional scientists interested in participating in the search for intelligent alien life, and citizens wishing to help support it, should email join_at_setileague_dot_org, check the SETI League Web site at http://www.setileague.org/, send a fax to +1 (201) 641-1771, or contact The SETI League, Inc. membership hotline at +1 (800) TAU-SETI. Be sure to provide us with a postal address to which we will mail further information. The SETI League, Inc. is a membership-supported, non-profit [501(c)(3)], educational and scientific corporation dedicated to the scientific Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
P.S. Tearsheets are always appreciated. Thank you.
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