SARA Members Mentor Ethiopian Teachers

Earlier this year Bill and Melinda Lord sent antenna kits for SID (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance) receivers to two teachers in Ethiopia. Stanford had supplied the receivers; we supplied the antenna wire, supports, coax and other components.

 Deborah Scherrer and some of her colleagues from Stanford had been to Ethiopia the prior year to present a workshop on Space Weather. There was keen interest in the SID project. Stanford could not supply units to all of the interested teachers (there were 70), but were able to send three units over. She asked for help since Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. She was able to supply an old computer for one of the teachers; the other two had computers that could be used although she suspects they could not be dedicated full time to the SID project.

Bill put the required ends on the coax cable, measured out the 400 foot of copper wire, built the antenna frame and then took pictures (figure 1) and printed instructions for the teachers. The contents of the antenna kit shipped to the two teachers in Ethiopia included a crimper and fasteners as well as a SARA sticker.  Shipping to Ethiopia is slow even though it cost over $70 for each antenna to be shipped. Below is a note from Gashaw Melkamu of the Kotebe College of Teacher Education in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

 “Thank you for your information about the SID antenna. Today I asked the post office personnel of the college and he told me that the SID antenna is still at the main post office. As he said, the custom authority requested the college to pay tax for the antenna and the college agreed to pay the tax, but the custom authority requested the college to have pin number for the tax payment and the college disagreed with this respect. Any way I will discuss with the academic dean of the college about the issue and I will write you soon.” Gashaw

 The second antenna went to Zemenu Mengiste of Higher 23 Senior Secondary School also in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He did not have trouble receiving the antenna and from his e-mail below you can see he is making progress.

 “hellow williiam and melinda, how are things there I am just doing fine here,the sid project going very well, I started collecting data and I am giving tutorials for some selected students but the electric power disconnected with 24 hours (24 hours on and then 24 hours off) and the data that I will get depends on the power program finally i just want to thank for writing me again and I will send you some data that I collected . by the way I oppened my owen primrry school and it will be functional by the coming year. your sincerely” zemenu

The photo below shows the group of teachers at last year’s Space Weather workshop held in Ethiopia. Photo courtesy of Deborah Scherrer