04/15/2021

A 5-year, $9.3 million National Science Foundation (NSF) grant will allow the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute to establish a new research observatory at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP[1]). A former military facility, HAARP is now operated by UAF and is home to HAARP Amateur Radio Club's KL7ERP. The new Subauroral Geophysical Observatory for Space Physics and Radio Science will be dedicated to exploring Earth's upper atmosphere and geospace environment. The facility's 33-acre Ionospheric Research Instrument will be the centerpiece of the observatory.

"This NSF support will provide the scientific community increased access to the instruments at the observatory and, hopefully, grow the scientific community," said Geophysical Institute Director Robert McCoy, the project's principal investigator.

A second NSF-funded project will add a Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) instrument at the site, which will allow the study of other regions of the upper atmosphere. A LiDAR sends pulses of laser light to determine the composition, temperature, and structure of regions of the upper atmosphere from 90 to 150 kilometers. UAF hopes to add additional instruments over time at the Gakona, Alaska, research site.

The research grant will allow scientists to investigate how the sun affects Earth's ionosphere and magnetosphere to produce changes in space weather. Their work will help fill gaps in knowledge about the region, which is important because ionospheric disturbances, if severe enough, can disrupt communication systems and damage the power grid.

Research at the observatory is initially expected to include the study of various types of aurora and other occurrences in the ionosphere, which stretches from about 50 to 400 miles above Earth's surface.

The Gakona facility is a prime location for the study of the ionosphere and magnetosphere because of its location in relation to one of Earth's magnetic field lines that reaches deep into the magnetosphere, the magnetic field that shields the planet from much of the sun's plasma energy.

"Amateur radio will clearly benefit with an improved understanding of ionospheric propagation and space weather physics, and providing improved HF propagation prediction modeling data," HAARP Research Station Chief Engineer and ARRL Life Member Steve Floyd, W4YHD, told ARRL. He said, "Radio science experiments will also provide a valuable data set to encourage development of new radio technologies and modulation methods useful from VLF through HF."

Floyd is the KL7ERP trustee, which, he says, is available "to demonstrate amateur radio to visiting scientists and students, to maintain contact with Alaska hams, and to provide visiting hams with an opportunity to operate from this unique Alaska location."

For more than 25 years, UAF, the US Air Force, the US Navy, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have collaborated on ionospheric research at HAARP. As Air Force funding for research and development decreased, the Air Force transferred the research equipment to UAF under an Education Partnership Agreement (EPA). The UAF Geophysical Institute operates the facility under an agreement with the Air Force.


[1] https://haarp.gi.alaska.edu/

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þ Synchronet þ Whiskey Lover's Amateur Radio BBS

01/10/2022

Nathaniel Frissell, W2NAF, an assistant professor at The University of Scranton Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant of nearly $50,000 to support the 2022 Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI[1]) Workshop. The event is set for March 18 - 19 at The US Space & Rocket Center¨ in Huntsville, Alabama. The in-person conference also has a virtual format option.

HamSCI is a collective of professional researchers and radio amateurs with the objective to foster collaboration between the amateur and professional communities to advance scientific research and understanding, encourage development of new technologies to support this research, and provide educational opportunities for both the amateur radio community and the general public.

The workshop will serve as a team meeting for the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station project, the beneficiary of a $1.3 million NSF-funded project grant awarded to Frissell. That project seeks to harness the power of a network of radio amateurs to better understand and measure the effects of weather in the upper levels of Earth's atmosphere. The theme for the 2-day HamSCI workshop is "The Weather Connection." The fifth annual workshop will feature prominent leaders in space weather, atmospheric weather, and the connection between them.

"The workshop series has led to cutting-edge work in the fields of space physics, citizen science, and the use of crowd-sourced ionospheric data," Frissell said. "To maximize the potential of the ham radio-professional researcher relationship, meetings are needed to bring these groups together to learn about each other's communities [and] vocabularies, to share ideas, and to participate in activities that advance both the scientific field and the radio hobby."

Frissell's research focuses on the ionosphere, the atmospheric region that extends 50 - 600 miles above Earth's surface. According to Frissell, changes in the ionosphere alter the behavior of radio wave propagation and greatly affect the radio communications and global navigation satellite systems. "Understanding ionospheric structures and processes will lead to an increased understanding and prediction of these effects," he said.


[1] http://www.hamsci.org/

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þ Synchronet þ Whiskey Lover's Amateur Radio BBS