@article {797, title = {Crowdsourced Doppler measurements of time standard stations demonstrating ionospheric variability}, journal = {Earth System Science Data}, volume = {15}, year = {2023}, month = {Jan-01-2023}, pages = {1403 - 1418}, abstract = {

Ionospheric variability produces measurable effects in Doppler shift of HF (high-frequency, 3{\textendash}30 MHz) skywave signals. These effects are straightforward to measure with low-cost equipment and are conducive to citizen science campaigns. The low-cost Personal Space Weather Station (PSWS) network is a modular network of community-maintained, open-source receivers, which measure Doppler shift in the precise carrier signals of time standard stations. The primary goal of this paper is to explain the types of measurements this instrument can make and some of its use cases, demonstrating its role as the building block for a large-scale ionospheric and HF propagation measurement network which complements existing professional networks. Here, data from the PSWS network are presented for a period of time spanning late 2019 to early 2022. Software tools for the visualization and analysis of this living dataset are also discussed and provided. These tools are robust to data interruptions and to the addition, removal or modification of stations, allowing both short- and long-term visualization at higher density and faster cadence than other methods. These data may be used to supplement observations made with other geospace instruments in event-based analyses, e.g., traveling ionospheric disturbances and solar flares, and to assess the accuracy of the bottomside estimates of ionospheric models by comparing the oblique paths obtained by ionospheric ray tracers with those obtained by these receivers. The data are archived at\ https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6622111(Collins,\ 2022).

}, doi = {10.5194/essd-15-1403-2023}, url = {https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1403/2023/https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/15/1403/2023/essd-15-1403-2023.pdf}, author = {Collins, Kristina and Gibbons, John and Frissell, Nathaniel and Montare, Aidan and Kazdan, David and Kalmbach, Darren and Swartz, David and Benedict, Robert and Romanek, Veronica and Boedicker, Rachel and Liles, William and Engelke, William and McGaw, David G. and Farmer, James and Mikitin, Gary and Hobart, Joseph and Kavanagh, George and Chakraborty, Shibaji} } @proceedings {569, title = {Construction and operation of a HamSCI Grape version 1 Personal Space Weather Station: A citizen scientist{\textquoteright}s perspective}, year = {2021}, month = {09/2021}, publisher = {ARRL-TAPR}, address = {Virtual}, url = {https://youtu.be/MHkz7jNynOg?t=12718}, author = {Benedict, Robert and Waugh, David A.} } @conference {581, title = {Construction and Operation of a HamSCI Grape Version 1 Personal Space Weather Station: A Citizen Scientist{\textquoteright}s Perspective}, booktitle = {American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting}, year = {2021}, month = {12}, publisher = {American Geophysical Union}, organization = {American Geophysical Union}, address = {New Orleans, LA}, abstract = {

Measurement of Doppler shifts of high frequency (HF) radio signals emitted by precision frequency transmitters is a well-established technique for the detection of traveling ionospheric disturbances and other perturbations in the bottomside ionosphere. Because Doppler measurements require minimal instrumentation, this technique naturally lends itself to crowdsourced data collection, and purpose-built instrumentation platforms are desirable in order to maximize consistency and repeatability. However, even the best system only has value if it is used, and a robust and engaged community of citizen scientists is vital to sustaining instrumentation platforms. The Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) has developed a prototype, low-cost system for making HF Doppler shift measurements of signals from standards stations such as WWV (Fort Collins, Colorado, USA) and CHU (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada). This system, known as the Personal Space Weather Station Grape Version 1, consists of a low intermediate frequency (IF) mixer board, GPS disciplined oscillator, and Raspberry Pi. In collaboration with funded project scientists and engineers, volunteer HamSCI community members developed instructions for building and operating a Grape Version 1 on the HamSCI website. In this presentation, we explain the process for constructing a Grape Version 1 and discuss the experiences of volunteers who have built and are now operating this system. We also discuss preliminary data from these stations, which show dramatic Doppler shifts during sunrise and sunset and during solar events. Concurrent data from multiple proximal stations show shared features and can be used for validation. These stations constitute the first iteration of the Personal Space Weather Station network.

}, url = {https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm21/meetingapp.cgi/Paper/845691}, author = {Hobart, Joseph R. and Farmer, James O. and Mikitin, Gary and Waugh, David and Benedict, Robert and Cerwin, Stephen A. and Collins, Kristina V, and Kazdan, David and Gibbons, John and Romanek, Veronica I. and Frissell, Nathaniel A.} }