Kristoff (ON1ARF)

@radiotelescoop
Hi Dwingeloo people, a small question to you: we are organizing a small one-day conference on #radiotechnology here in Belgium, which includes three talks on #space and #radioastronomy . It there an amateur radioastronomy community out there? And how can we reach them?

(HamConBE25: 26th of April, Leuven, Belgium) https://hamcon.be/

@ 2026 HamCon Belgium

Mar 13, 2025 at 7:42amWeb
Show threadDwingeloo RadiotelescoopMar 13, 2025
@on1arf Hi there. Yes there certainly is an amateur radio astronomy community around the Dwingeloo radio telescope. I've pinged them on our internal channel, also feel free to mail at [email protected]
Show threadKristoff (ON1ARF)Mar 13, 2025

@radiotelescoop
Thanks, I will surely contact you thuis Evening.

But what about online?
Is there a place /forum / discord channel / matrix room / whatever where all radioastronomy geeks hang out?

Somewhere where somebody new who is interested in this might go to see what it is all about?

Show threadDwingeloo RadiotelescoopMar 13, 2025
@on1arf No sorry, we do not have that. We do have Bluesky, Mastodon, X, facebook, youtube and instagram, but for internal comms we use mattermost (members only). I'd say the radio astronomy community around Dwingeloo consists of about 10 people.
Show threadOnno (VK6FLAB)Mar 13, 2025

@radiotelescoop @on1arf not to mention the visiting international radio astronomy community who appear to go on regular pilgrimages to explore and enjoy 😇

Source: the radio astronomy group is growing here in the VK6 amateur radio community .. to the benefit of all involved.

Show threadKristoff (ON1ARF)Mar 13, 2025
@radiotelescoop
I do quite a bit of promotion for for amateur radio (FOSDEM, makerfaire, hackerspaces). It is very easy to get people interested in something as geeky as 'receiving signals from space' but to keep them interested, we need to be able say 'go to that forum, all amateur radioastronomy geeks are there and they can help you to get started'.