AAVSO, 99 th Annual Meeting, 2010 Solar Plasma Motion Detection at Radio Frequencies Very Low Frequencies (VLF) Solar Ionosphere Detection (SID) By Rodney.

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010

Solar Plasma Motion Detection at Radio Frequencies

Very Low Frequencies (VLF)

Solar Ionosphere Detection (SID)

By Rodney Howe MS Remote Sensing, A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Overview of presentation

• How VLF detection works• A computer analysis for SID detection

– Scaling GOES X-ray events to ionosphere disturbance detection with VLF receiver energies

– Evaluate detection possibilities and importance ratings

Howe A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010VLF Transmitter locations

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Transmitting Stations




AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010EM Wave Propagation

Copyright © XTR Systems, LLC

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Inverse Square Law


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010EM Interaction With Matter


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Propagation and Reflection


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Reflection vs. Refraction


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Ionosphere Structure


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010e- Density vs. Altitude


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Ionosphere Structure


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Incoming solar burst..

HAIL project Stanford University


There are two basic VLF receivertypes to validate SID data collection

E field antenna and receiver, whip antenna

H field Gyrator receiver, loop antenna

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Typical Site Configurations

• Low volume data capture rates– 1 second sample rate– <93,000 samples per Day– Intel (386, 486) Hardware or Equivalent ($<200)– Linux OS ($0) or Windows OS– Analog to Digital Meter ($100), or sound card ($0)– Perl, PHP Programming Languages ($0)– C++ Programming Language ($0)– DSL (0.5 Mbps) ($60/month)– Flat-file, Excel Spreadsheet

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Example of an E Field Active Antenna


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Active Antenna Schematic


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Active Antenna Details


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Single-channel Receiver


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Single-channel Receiver


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Logarithmic RF Detector uses the computer’s sound card


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Cutler, Jim Creek, & LaMoure


AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Gyrator VLF receiver

HoweA121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 201024 turn 1.5 meter loop H Field Antenna

HoweA121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Diode Detector Receiver

A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Both receiver types record alike

A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010AAVSO Historical data from Doug Welch

A104

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Some of the monitoring stations that report to AAVSO are:

• Observer Receiver Location Transmitter and Location• Moos Switzerland FTA - St. Assie, France • Hill Massachusetts, USA NAA - Cutler, ME, USA• Winkler Texas, USA NAA - Cutler, ME, USA• Kielkopf Kentucky, USA NAA - Cutler, ME, USA• Campbell Alberta, CA NLK - Jim Creek, WA, USA• Howe Colorado, USA NML - LaMoure, ND, USA• Mc. Williams Minnesota, USA NML - LaMoure, ND, USA• Samouce Montana, USA NML - LaMoure, ND, USA• Kielkopf Kentucky, USA NPM - Lualualei, HI, USA (2nd receiver)• Mandaville Arizona, USA NPM - Lualualei, HI, USA• Lewis California, USA NPM - Lualualei, HI, USA• Winkler Texas, USA NPM - Lualualei, HI, USA (2nd receiver)

• The observing method employs the monitoring of distant, powerful• VLF radio transmitters; this is a sensitive monitor of the state• of the lower ionosphere along the radio propagation path. Due to• the sub-burst longitude and latitude and the geographical• distribution of LF/VLF beacons and monitoring stations, this burst• was not detected by active monitoring stations in Germany,• Australia and Canada. However, one monitoring station in• Massachusetts, USA (separate from Hill) did not detect the SID• while being in a good location to do so.

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Solar flare detection requires: SID Start Time, SID Maximum, and the SID End Time (UTC)

A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Importance of Having FriendsTo validate the solar flares

A125

[email protected] <[email protected]>

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Detection of SID or X-ray transients classified by NOAA-GOES satellites

• Are these VLF receivers sensitive enough to detect A or B class flares detected from the GOES satellites?

• Computer analysis may help answer this question.

A87

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Mike Hill created software to match GOES satellite event data to SID observers

A87 – A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Matching GOES monthly event data to SID VLF receivers

Solar Flare Summary Based on GOES-8 DataSeptember, 2010

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

B-Class: C-Class: M-Class: X-Class:

A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Matching GOES monthly event data to SID VLF receivers

The importance of collaborating with others to collect and validate data with NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) .

AAVSO has submitted monthly reports to NGDC since 1980, (for 30 years!), in this format:

ID date start max end IR freq AAVSO-ID

40 040101 0320 0343 0323 1 3WC20 A102

40 040101 0539 0605 0543 1+ 1WC20 A102

40 040101 0653 0707 0655 1- 1WC20 A102

40 040102 0944 1003 0947 1 1WC20 A102

40 040103 1809 1823 1811 1- 5AA24 A87

40 040103 1939 2034 1959 2+ 2XX25 A110

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/Sudden_Ionospheric_Disturbances/

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010We can detect B class flares recorded by GOES satellites

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Evaluating the Importance Rating submitted by SID Observers

A121

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

1- 1 1+ 2 2+ 3 3+

Importance Rating

SID Events Recorded for September, 2010


• The importance rating scale is: • less than or equal to 18 minutes = 1- • 19-25 minutes = 1 • 26-32 minutes = 1+• 33-45 minutes = 2 • 46-85 minutes = 2+ • 86-125 minutes = 3 • greater than or equal to 126 minutes = 3+

Evaluating the Importance Rating submitted by SID Observers

NGDC

ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/Sudden_Ionospheric_Disturbances/1README.TXT


A Long-Term Project To Set up to:

Match Begin, Maximum and End times to GOES events, so that we can:

Match the NGDC Importance Rating’s to the GOES log scale (A – X) class flares.

Work in progress..

Evaluating the Importance Rating submitted by SID Observers

A121

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Acknowledgements

• For Helpful Conversations & Encouragement– Joseph DiVerdi, XTR Systems, LLC– Doug Welch, AAVSO-SID, A104– Mike Hill, AAVSO-SID, A87– Susan Oatney, AAVSO-SID, A125– Matt Ettus, GNU-Radio– Peter Wilhelm Otto Arnold Schnoor

• http://www-star.stanford.edu/~vlf/hail/hail.htm


• Questions?

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010NPM @ Lualualei

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010NAU @ Aguada, PR

AAVSO, 99th Annual Meeting, 2010Multi-Channel Observations

AAVSO, 99 th Annual Meeting, 2010 Solar Plasma Motion Detection at Radio Frequencies Very Low Frequencies (VLF) Solar Ionosphere Detection (SID) By Rodney.

Documents

annual meeting

loop antenna slide

matter copyright xtr

altitude copyright xtr

vlf detection

transmitting stations

detection possibilities

sid detection scaling