A Modern VLF Radio Receiver Designed for the Array for VLF Imaging of the D-Region (AVID)

Cannon, James M  (ORCID:000000027431725X); Dick, Ryan; Fragomeni, Bennett; Gebhardt, Hayden; Wankmueller, Sebastian  (ORCID:0009000562169965); Tribble, Ash  (ORCID:0009000388109464); Orlandella, Sophia; Feinland, Max; Marshall, Robert A  (ORCID:0000000309741609)

doi:10.1109/TGRS.2025.3607146

The very first use of the solar eclipse to study the ionosphere was done in 1912 at a wavelength of 5,500 meters. Since that time, multiple studies have been done at VLF and LF frequencies. Most of these studies were performed at a single receive site with a single transmit location during a single eclipse, thus making it very hard to compare data from separate collections. This paper addresses historical collection efforts, what has been learned about the sun’s influence upon the ionosphere, and the role of neutral corpuscular particles ionizing the ionosphere. Questions raised by the above will be addressed. A planned crowdsource effort will then be described that will attempt to address and answer questions raised by having multiple receivers all reporting on signals transmitted by the same VLF/LF stations. There are two approaches to the crowdsource collection. One approach uses the SuperSID network that is already reporting on changes in propagation of signals from VLF stations. The other approach uses a receiver and antenna based upon an instrumentation amplifier chip and a smart phone as a software defined radio. The later approach will be detailed.

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