Stereo CUTLASS - A new capability for the SuperDARN HF radars

Abstract

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN), which consists of networks of HF radars surrounding the northern and southern poles, has proven to be an extremely successful experimental technique in a wide range of scientific areas. The basic design of the radars, which contributes to SuperDARN, has remained virtually unchanged since the first radar was built in the early 1980s. This paper presents the first results of a significant new development of the basic system. Termed "Stereo", this development involves the addition of a duplicate receive channel and makes use of the spare duty cycle available in the current transmitters. The Stereo system has been implemented on the two radars that form the Co-operative UK Twin Located Auroral Sounding System (CUTLASS), which are the easternmost pair of radars in the Northern Hemisphere SuperDARN chain. Instead of the standard 7 pulse sequence normally employed by the radars, two such pulse sequences are interleaved and transmitted at different frequencies separated by more than 15kHz. This development allows for the radar to run two entirely different experimental modes simultaneously. Here we describe the basic Stereo system and some of the early results. We also identify potential new experiments which could be run with Stereo to complement the existing standard SuperDARN radar. Key words. Ionosphere (ionosphere-magnetosphere interactions; ionospheric irregularities; instruments and techniques)