HAARP Goes Classical During New Experimental Campaign

ARRL
February 23, 2017

The just-concluded run of ionospheric investigations conducted from Alaska’s High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) observatory — quite likely the most powerful HF transmission facility in the world — revived the latent short-wave listener (SWL) lurking within most radio amateurs. Operating under Part 5 Experimental license WI2XFX, HAARP this month even aired some classical music as it conducted its first scientific research campaign since being taken over 18 months ago from the military by the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Geophysical Institute.
UAF Space Physics Group Assistant Research Professor Chris Fallen, KL3WX, focused on two experiments — one called “airglow” that literally aimed to light up the ionosphere, and another to demonstrate the so-called “Luxembourg Effect,” first noticed on a 1930s Radio Luxembourg broadcast. Public engagement was part of his plan, and Fallen this week said the Twitter and e-mail feedback from his transmissions had been “fantastic,” and that his science campaign had become “quite an event.”
“Thank you for making a difference and advancing Amateur Radio as well,” Doug Howard, VE6CID, tweeted. Another Twitter follower enthused, “You’re running the coolest DX station in the world.” Fallen said he also received “a lot of great waterfalls,” as well as video and audio recordings from hams and SWLs.
Fallen started and stopped each experiment block with DTMF tones, transmitted in AM on or about 2.8 and 3.3 MHz, each channel fed with audio tones of different frequencies or, in the case of music, as a separate stereo channel. If the “Luxembourg Effect” is present, skywave-signal listeners would hear both channels combined on a single frequency; Fallen said the effect is easier to detect with tones. In addition to tones, he transmitted “a ‘dance track,’ a Pachelbel Canon arrangement, and a variation of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’” Jeff Dumps, KL4IU, composed some of the music, and he arranged and performed all of it.
The CW “airglow” artificial aurora experiment followed the Luxembourg Effect transmissions. All week, Fallen despaired that the “ratty” ionosphere and cloud cover were diminishing his hopes for success with the artificial aurora experiments. But on the last night, he tweeted, “Seeing artificial airglow with the spectrometer. Film at 11.”
Fallen is now evaluating the results of his HAARP efforts. He said one listener posted “a most excellent” YouTube clip. He was not specific; several have been posted that document this week's experiments, including this one from Stephen Oleson, VE6SLP. Laurence Howell, KL7L, in Wasilla, Alaska, posted an audio file.
“The miracle of crowd sourcing!” Fallen said. “If only the Luxembourg Effect was more pronounced, but it is in the 3,300 kHz recording.”
Fallen has been working under a $60,000 National Science Foundation grant. “During campaigns, significant expenditures for fuel and personnel are required,” the grant abstract said. “Large start-up costs make HAARP experiments largely inaccessible to individual researchers unless multiple experiments and funding sources can be bundled together during a campaign of up to two-week duration.” According to the abstract, public participation would maximize “the broader impacts of the investigations.”
“HAARP again...perhaps sometime this summer!” Fallen tweeted on February 23. He has posted additional information on his “Gakona HAARPoon 2017” blog.
(Mike Terry/BDXC)
http://www.arrl.org/news/haarp-goes-classical-during-new-experimental-campaign
(photo/ARRL)

The Story of a Megasized Shortwave Station in Alaska

(HAARP via ARRL)

Construction work on a megasized shortwave station in Alaska began in the year 1993.  The location for this huge project was at an American Air Force base at an isolated location near Gakona, nearly 200 miles north east of the state capital Anchorage.
The ground plan for this massive shortwave station, HAARP High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, called for 360 transmitters at 10 kW each and 180 antenna masts, all compactly installed into a square pattern occupying 30 acres.  The Continental transmitters are grouped in pairs in special weatherproof temperature controlled containers.  The antenna masts support a total of 720 low band and high band shortwave antennas.
This very expensive project was constructed in three separate phases at an initial cost of $30 million.  An additional supercomputer system cost $25 million, and operational costs have been estimated at $30 million. 
The first phase of construction was completed in 1998, and a secondary phase was completed four years later.  The entire facility was finally and fully completed in 2007; though 6 years later, HAARP Alaska was shutdown.
Initial test transmissions took place on March 8, 1997 on 3400 kHz and 6990 kHz with an open carrier from the total system, and messages in Morse Code.  These tests were announced in advance and special QSL cards were available. 
Another series of tests took place two years later on March 27, 1999 and one international radio monitor who was in London England at the time reported that even with the total signal output at a massive 3.6 megawatts, HAARP was not audible in the United Kingdom.
Back in January 2008, HAARP conducted an additional two day series of tests beamed to the moon.  These moonbounce transmissions were noted on two shortwave frequencies, 6792.5 kHz and 7407.5 kHz.
The purpose for HAARP Alaska was to study the impact of massive radiated power into the sky, with the possibility of controlling it the ionosphere and nullifying incoming radio signals from other countries.  Much speculation about the HAARP project has suggested that weather patterns may be altered, deep earth radar could detect underground patterns, and communication could be achieved with deeply submerged submarines. 
However, the government authorities at HAARP Alaska have been quite open about the activities associated with their project, and open house events with guided tours have been staged periodically.  The well known amateur radio operator and radio writer, Gordon West WB6NOA, was granted an inspection tour in September 2001, apparently in an attempt to dispel conspiracy theories that abound about the station.  He stated in an article in Popular Communications magazine that normally the station can not be heard on regular shortwave receivers because the transmitters operate with a frequency hopping technique, that is a rapid and continuous change in frequencies.   
Ownership of the HAARP facility has recently been transferred to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and plans are now underway to reopen this transmitter station and to conduct additional propagation experiments.  The FCC has issued two transmission licenses for the revived HAARP Alaska.  Callsign WI2XFX permits experimental transmissions on seven in-between bands in the shortwave spectrum, and callsign WI2XDV permits experimental transmissions ranging from 1 MHz up to 40 MHz.
A few years ago, a total of 720 transmitting tubes were removed from the 360 transmitters and placed in warm storage for safety, and currently staff are in the process of re-inserting them back into each transmitter unit.
Interestingly, HAARP Alaska is not the only shortwave facility for ionospheric research.  It is understood that other similar, though smaller facilities are located at Fairbanks in Alaska, and also on . the island of Puerto Rico, as well as at Tromso in Norway, and Vasilsursk in Russia
The QSL card issued by HAARP Alaska presents a photo in color depicting part of their enormous antenna system.
(AWR_Wavescan-NWS 397)

HAARP Facility Shuts Down

15 July 2013

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) — a subject of fascination for many hams and the target of conspiracy theorists and anti-government activists — has closed down. HAARP’s program manager, Dr James Keeney at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, told ARRL that the sprawling 35-acre ionospheric research facility in remote Gakona, Alaska, has been shuttered since early May.

“Currently the site is abandoned,” he said. “It comes down to money. We don’t have any.” Keeney said no one is on site, access roads are blocked, buildings are chained and the power turned off. HAARP’s website through the University of Alaska no longer is available; Keeney said the program can’t afford to pay for the service. “Everything is in secure mode,” he said, adding that it will stay that way at least for another 4 to 6 weeks. In the meantime a new prime contractor will be coming on board to run the government owned-contractor operated (GOCO) facility.

More info:

http://www.arrl.org/news/view/haarp-facility-shuts-down?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

(Dino Bloise)

HAARP scientists creat 'artificial ionosphere'

An experiment that fires powerful radio waves into the sky has created a patch of ‘artificial ionosphere’, mimicking the uppermost portion of Earth’s atmosphere. The research has not only caused glowing dots to appear around these patches — it could also provide a new way to bounce radio signals around the globe.

The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), near Gakona, Alaska, has spent nearly two decades using radio waves to probe Earth’s magnetic field and ionosphere.

Todd Pedersen, a research physicist at the US Air Force Research Laboratory in Massachusetts, who leads the team that ran the experiment at HAARP, says that “Instead of depending entirely on the natural ionosphere to redirect radio waves or shortwave broadcasts,we are now getting the capability that we can actually produce our own little ionosphere”.
(R Netherlands)
Full report at Nature News http://www.nature.com/news/2009/091002/full/news.2009.975.html