Gibbons John, Collins Kristina, Kazdan David, Frissell Nathaniel
Case Western Reserve University, United States.
University of Scranton, United States.
HardwareX. 2022 Mar 10;11:e00289. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2022.e00289. eCollection 2022 Apr.
Crowd sourced data collection among the international community of amateur radio operators and shortwave listeners has great potential for addressing problems of under-sampling in the geospace system. Quantitative Doppler measurements of high frequency (HF) time standard stations, used in bottom side ionospheric sensing, have been accomplished using existing radio hardware belonging to volunteers in distributed campaigns. However, typical shortwave receivers cannot be put to ordinary use while these measurements are being taken, do not have standardized signal chains, and are generally too expensive to be purchased for the sole purpose of taking Doppler measurements. Here, we provide documentation for a low-cost intermediate frequency receiver, the Grape Version 1, which is designed specifically for measurements of North American time standard stations. Grape receivers can be easily constructed and deployed by amateur scientists in order to gain a deeper understanding of variations in radio propagation in their local environment. When compared over long periods and across distributed networks of stations, the resulting data yield insights on greater spatial and time scales. At the time of writing, several of these receivers have been deployed across the United States and are actively collecting data. These receivers form the first iteration of the Low-Cost Personal Space Weather Station network.
在国际业余无线电操作员和短波听众群体中进行众包数据收集，对于解决地球空间系统中采样不足的问题具有巨大潜力。在分布式活动中，利用志愿者现有的无线电硬件，已完成了用于电离层底部探测的高频（HF）时间标准站的定量多普勒测量。然而，在进行这些测量时，典型的短波接收器无法正常使用，没有标准化的信号链，而且通常过于昂贵，无法仅为进行多普勒测量而购买。在此，我们提供一种低成本中频接收器——葡萄版1型（Grape Version 1）的文档，它是专门为测量北美时间标准站而设计的。业余科学家可以轻松构建和部署葡萄接收器，以便更深入地了解其当地环境中无线电传播的变化。当在长时间内并跨分布式台站网络进行比较时，所得数据能在更大的空间和时间尺度上提供见解。在撰写本文时，这些接收器中的几个已在美国各地部署，并正在积极收集数据。这些接收器构成了低成本个人空间气象站网络的首次迭代。
