Presentation #130.01 in the session Innovation and Discovery in Solar and Space Physics Enabled by Citizen Science.
Amateur radio enthusiasts (“hams”) have been at the forefront of radio frequency technology and experimentation since the advent of the medium. In the past, the popularity of the hobby in the United States and Europe has been successfully leveraged to study ionosphere-thermosphere phenomena, such as Sporadic-E, by using hams as a vast, geographically distributed network of disciplined radio transceivers. Over the past decade scientific collaborations with hams has been reinvigorated due in part to the maturation and proliferation of passive radio receivers based on software defined radio principles and architecture. In this presentation, we will discuss recent advances in ionosphere-thermosphere investigations involving citizen radio science techniques and notable results stemming from these partnerships. In particular, we will focus on the HamSCI Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) a scientific collective established with a goal of advancing scientific research, developing of new technologies, and providing educational support for radio science activities.