HAARP Facility to Resume Ionospheric Research this Week
Alaska's super-power High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP)
transmitters in Gakona, Alaska, will fire up again for the spring
research campaign April 6 - 14. University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)
Space Physics Group researcher and HAARP Chief Scientist Chris Fallen,
KL3WX, told ARRL that more than 40 hours of "externally funded"
experiments are in the queue.
"Scientists
from US universities and government labs will explore the physics of
scintillations, magnetic field-aligned plasma irregularities, artificial
and natural atmospheric airglow, stimulated electromagnetic emissions,
plasma waves, and radio-enhanced ionization," Fallen said. "The HAARP
transmitter is still at 80% net power, but by summer we expect to have
the final 'column' of transmitters restored, bringing the array back to
100%."For his part, Fallen said he still has some time remaining on his National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study artificial airglow, but added that this is "a tough time of year in a tough year of the solar cycle" for such experiments. "It will not be dark enough in Gakona to observe artificial airglow emissions until 10 PM at the beginning of the campaign and 10:30 PM at the end of the campaign, due to the rapidly lengthening days in the Land of Midnight Sun."
Kona, the HAARP dog.
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Fallen
said that due to weakening solar activity, the critical frequency of
the ionosphere's F2 layer (foF2) is relatively low during the day,
peaking at a little more than 4 MHz above Gakona in the late afternoon,
and falling rapidly in the evening, limiting the time available for
experiments.
Fallen may continue his past practice of "bundling"
amplitude modulated content of interest to hams in the airglow
experiments. His previous airglow experiments were accompanied by tones
and music to illustrate the Luxembourg effect and slow-scan television
(SSTV) images in Scottie 1 format.Fallen plans to tweet selected transmitter frequencies and other information throughout the campaign from his personal Twitter page. HAARP's official Twitter page will share photos and other information of general interest, "such as what the HAARP dog is up to," Fallen said.
Operation of the HAARP research facility was transferred from the US Air Force to UAF in 2015.
See ARRL website for further info.
