First observations of the McMurdo-South Pole oblique ionospheric HF channel

Abstract

We present the first observations from a new low-cost oblique ionosonde located in Antarctica. The transmitter is located at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, and the receiver at Amundsen-Scott Station, South Pole. The system was demonstrated successfully in March 2019, with the experiment yielding over 30 000 ionospheric echoes over a 2-week period. These data indicate the presence of a stable E layer and a sporadic and variable F layer with dramatic spread F of sometimes more than 500 km (in units of virtual height). The most important ionospheric parameter, NmF2, validates well against the Jang Bogo Vertical Incidence Pulsed Iono-spheric (VIPIR) ionosonde (observing more than 1000 km away). GPS-derived TEC data from the Multi-Instrument Data Analysis Software (MIDAS) algorithm can be considered necessary but insufficient to predict 7.2MHz propagation between McMurdo and the South Pole, yielding a true positive in 40% of cases and a true negative in 73% of cases. The success of this pilot experiment at a total grant cost of USD 116 000 and an equipment cost of similar to USD 15 000 indicates that a large multi-static network could be built to provide unprecedented observational coverage of the Antarctic ionosphere.