Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmsa43b1599s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #SA43B-1599
Physics
Plasma Physics
2403 Active Experiments, 2471 Plasma Waves And Instabilities (2772), 2494 Instruments And Techniques
Scientific paper
Ground-based active experiments in aeronomy and space plasma physics require facilities that are moderate in price compared to some in situ experiments, but nonetheless, the costs are significant and increasing rapidly, especially from the effect of the recent increase of the price of energy on the costs of construction and operation. The Arecibo heating facility, now under construction, was designed from the start to minimize the capital investment necessary for a facility designed to transmit a high power high frequency wave into the earth's ionosphere. The required large effective area of the antenna already exists: the Arecibo 300 m dish. A feed using dipoles and a subreflector is being constructed to illuminate the dish efficiently. The high power transmitters and transmission lines have been obtained surplus. After some study, we have been able to identify some changes that can reduce expenses without affecting the primary goals of the project, but perhaps resulting in some loss in flexibility of operation and some restrictions on future modifications to the facility. We have simplified the switching system for selecting which of the two dipole arrays is in use. This is only possible if we run separate transmission lines for the two systems. The additional lines can be obtained for the shipping costs, but we must use smaller ones in order to keep the installation costs down. This results in a slight increase in loss at the current frequencies of interest, but precludes eventual modification of the facility to use the highest frequency band of the transmitters. The antenna costs are lowered, and the facility will be easier to maintain. We will also lower operating costs by altering the biasing of the final transmitter stages. This somewhat restricts the kinds of waveforms that can be transmitted. For special experiments we would be able re-tune in order to regain the original capabilities.
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