NETWORK OF INTERNET-CONTROLLED HF RECEIVERS FOR IONOSPHERIC RESEARCHES

Abstract

A network of HF receivers intended for multi-position monitoring of the ionosphere is described. At present, it includes nine observation sites located at high, middle and low latitudes in both hemispheres of the Earth. The basic element of the network is a small-size receiving and measuring units designed at the Institute of Radio Astronomy (IRA) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU) on the basis of a personal computer equipped with commercial digital receiving modules. Software packages developed by the authors make it possible to remotely control the facilities via the Internet network. The received emissions are HF signals from special transmitters and broadcast radio stations. These are processed using Doppler and pulse selection algorithms. In the Internet-controlled mode, the observation results are transferred to the main server in real time to be automatically processed and visualized at the website of the IRA NASU’s Department of Radiophysics of Geospace. Several examples of using the observation results obtained with the HF receiver network for diagnostics of dynamic processes in the near-Earth plasma are presented. The advantages of the multiposition mode of observations are discussed. The possibility of upgrading the HF facilities to provide measuring angles of arrival of signals is considered.

Keywords

• internet control
• long-distance radio-wave propagation
• doppler translation
• impulse selection
• ionospheric turbulence
• brillouin dispersion