Borrowed from QRZ. The loss of ionosondes that have been used in
ionospheric research might be justified from a purely monetary
viewpoint. But they have provided a historic record that needs to be
kept going as a comparison to the space based sensors presently used to
measure and predict the status of the ionosphere.

Don't bother posting comments here. Go to WWW.QRZ.COM where they have
moderated topics. Thanks, bb
____________________

Topic: Closure of the UK Ionosondes, Propagation Research Next Oldest
| Next Newest


M5AKA


Group: Ham Members
Posts: 161
Joined: Dec. 2001 Posted: Mar. 27 2006,12:44

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Unless there is sufficient support to reverse this decision in seems we
could lose the UK Ionosondes at Chilton and Port Stanley. These provide
invaluable propagation data for North West Europe and the South
Atlantic. The letter below is from the Head of Ionospheric Monitoring
at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Dear All,

Closure of the UK Ionosondes at Chilton and Port Stanley

This letter is intended to alert our users and the scientific community
to the decision of the UK's Particle Physics and Astronomy Research
Council
(PPARC) to withdraw all funding from the UK ionosondes program. Unless
this decision is reversed, or alternative funding is found by the end
of June, this will mean the closure of the ionospheric monitoring
stations at Chilton in the UK and at Port Stanley in the Falkland
Islands within the next 6 months.

The Chilton ionosonde continues the data series begun at Slough in 1931
and has just celebrated 75 years of regular soundings of the
ionosphere, the longest sequence of ionospheric data anywhere in the
world. The Port Stanley ionosonde has been taking data since 1945,
making it one of the longest time series of ionospheric data anywhere
in the southern hemisphere.
Closure of the Chilton and Port Stanley ionosondes will cut off
valuable long-term data series and leave crucial gaps in coverage at
the Northwestern edge of Europe and in the South Atlantic. This would
be a significant loss to ionospheric, solar-terrestrial, upper
atmosphere and radio science.

With PPARC's encouragement the UK ionosondes team is urgently looking
at alternative models of funding for this important, interdisciplinary
work.

However, it is vital to avoid having to decommission the sites, if the
data series are to stand any chance of continuation. Community support
will be an important factor in securing alternative funding and in
ensuring adequate time and funding to implement change.

If you would like to support continued operation of the UK ionosondes,
please write or email to the contacts given below. We suggest that you
ask that PPARC recognise the importance of these instruments and work
with the UK ionosondes project team to find and develop alternative
models of funding.

Also included below is a list of some of the key issues about the
Chilton and Port Stanley ionosondes. Please feel free to choose from
this list those points most important to your own area of interest and
elaborate on them in your comments to PPARC.

Many thanks in advance for your support,

Sarah James
Head of Ionospheric Monitoring at RAL

Please send letters or emails to the following:

Prof Keith Mason

Chief Executive, Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon SN2 1ET
UK

And to:

Mr. Peter Warry

Chair, Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon SN2 1ET
UK

Please copy any letters or emails to:

Sue Horne
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Polaris House
North Star Avenue
Swindon SN2 1ET
UK

And:

Sarah James

Ionospheric Monitoring Group
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Chilton
Didcot OX11 0QX
UK
The importance of the Chilton / Slough and Port Stanley ionospheric
data
* The 75-year data series of regular ionospheric measurements from
Slough and Chilton is the key international measure of long-term change
in the upper atmosphere.
* The over 60 year data series from Port Stanley is one of longest
sequences in the rest of the world and, along with Canberra, one of the
two longest anywhere in the southern hemisphere. It is the key dataset
in the South American sector of the world.
* The quality and consistency of the data have been very carefully
maintained. For example, cross-calibration was carried out when the
Digisonde at Slough was bought in the 1980's and when the instrument
moved from Slough to Chilton in the 1990's. Manual scaling of the
hourly parameters has continued in parallel with autoscaling, since the
latter became available. This has enabled recent work analysing the
accuracy of autoscaling over several years.
* The quality and length of the Slough / Chilton data series means
it is widely used around the world as the leading ionosonde data
series.
These data are the single, most important sequence in global Ionosonde
data.
* The location of the Port Stanley ionosonde is unique. It is close
to the South Atlantic Anomaly in the geomagnetic field, a region where
energetic particles from the radiation belts are more likely to be
deposited into the upper atmosphere. Unusual features, which are seen
in Stanley data, may be related to its proximity to the South Atlantic
Anomaly. It is the case that the ionosphere does not necessarily
behave in the same way in the southern and northern hemispheres, due to
the inclination and offset of the geomagnetic dipole relative to the
axis of rotation of the earth, and due to the effect of seasonal
thermospheric winds on the composition of the upper atmosphere. These
winds may themselves be subject to long-term change. So Stanley data is
necessary to a global understanding of the ionosphere and upper
atmosphere.
* Data from Chilton and Slough were recently used to demonstrate an
electrical link between lightning and the ionosphere, a link long
proposed but previously unproven. This is an excellent example of the
long sequence of routine measurements taken by the UK ionosondes
yielding answers in brand new areas of research, and adding to the
understanding of the important subject of the vertical coupling of
energy in the atmosphere. (Nature 435 (7043): 799-801 Jun 9 2005,
Davis, CJ. and Johnson, CG.)
* Ionospheric data from Chilton have already been used in comparison
with data from Mars, to understand the impact of solar activity on the
Martian ionosphere. This topic is increasingly important for robotic
missions to other planets, and safety critical for proposed human
exploration of the solar system. (For example: Science 311 (5764):
1135-1138 Feb 24 2006, Mendillo, M. et al)
* The Chilton ionosonde has an important role in the European
network of real-time ionospheric measurements, providing the
northwestern edge of real-time mapping of conditions across Europe.
Its edge position makes its loss significant to the overall accuracy of
the maps, especially when there are strong horizontal gradients in the
ionosphere, for example at dawn and dusk. (STIF maps at
http://ionosphere.rcru.rl.ac.uk/, Annals of Geophysics 48 (3) Jun 2005
- Special issue on Effects of the Ionosphere on Terrestrial and
Earth-Space Communications).
* The UK has a strong reputation globally and within Europe in
ionospheric science. European COST projects on trans-ionospheric radio
propagation have not only used UK ionosonde data, but have also been
led from the UK. This reputation and position will suffer from the
termination of the most prestigious data in this area of science.
* Through the UK ionosondes, the UK contributes to the
internationally important Space Environment Center (SEC) in the US, the
Ionospheric Prediction Service (IPS) in Australia and to the World Data
Centre (WDC) worldwide system. The data are vital to the production of
the IF2 and IG indices, produced by the WDC for STP in the UK. Without
Chilton and Port Stanley data, these indices can no longer be produced.
* One of the six science goals of the International Heliophysical
Year (IHY) in 2007 is to "Determine the response of terrestrial and
planetary magnetospheres and atmospheres to external drivers".
Long-term ionosonde data are able to make a unique contribution to
answering this question.
IHY will be a period of unprecedented collaboration on this topic,
internationally and across disciplines and with multiple instruments.
It is counter productive to cut the UK ionosondes program just before
such a vital period.
* As well as the areas of research that will be affected immediately
by the closure of Chilton and Stanley, it should be noted that the
importance of long-term studies of geophysical data are normally in
areas that were not foreseen when monitoring work began. Referring to
recent results from these stations in long-term change, the comparative
studies of terrestrial and Martian ionospheres and into coupling
between the troposphere and ionosphere through lightning, these studies
could not have been done, or had not been imagined until recently.
Unknown future science will be lost too with the closure of these
instruments.
---
Ms Sarah James
Email:
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Tel: +44 1235 446579
Chilton, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0QX, UK. Fax: +44 1235 445848

----------------

The Ionospheric Monitoring Group:
http://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/ionosondes/ionosondes.html

Chilton: http://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/ionosondes/ralsite.html

Port Stanley: http://www.ukssdc.ac.uk/ionosondes/falsite.html

73 Trevor M5AKA
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saw it over there my coment "no Bucks no Buck Rogers" VI grison I
belive or one of the merury astronauts

sadly a case of no buck no buck rogers