The Deployable Low‐Band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment

The Deployable Low‐Band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (DLITE) is a four‐element interferometric radio telescope made from mostly commercial off‐the‐shelf parts to minimize costs and maximize ease of deployment. It operates in the high frequency and very high frequency (VHF) regimes, nominally...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Radio science 2021-07, Vol.56 (7), p.n/a
Main Authors: Helmboldt, J. F., Markowski, B. B., Bonanno, D. J., Clarke, T. E., Dowell, J., Hicks, B. C., Kassim, N. E., Taylor, G. B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Astronomy
Beamforming
Ionosphere
ionospheric disturbances
ionospheric remote sensing
ionospheric scintillation
Noise sensitivity
Radio emission
radio frequency interferometry
Radio sources (astronomy)
Radio telescopes
Systems design
time domain astronomy
Very high frequencies
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Summary:The Deployable Low‐Band Ionosphere and Transient Experiment (DLITE) is a four‐element interferometric radio telescope made from mostly commercial off‐the‐shelf parts to minimize costs and maximize ease of deployment. It operates in the high frequency and very high frequency (VHF) regimes, nominally in a 30–40 MHz band, but with good sensitivity (sky‐noise dominated) in the 20–80 MHz range. Its configuration is optimized to probe ionospheric structure using the so‐called “A‐Team,” exceptionally bright sources of cosmic radio emission. Methods have been developed to track the apparent positions and intensities of A‐Team sources without the need for beam forming to enable measurements of VHF scintillations as well as total electron content gradients. Time difference of arrival and frequency difference of arrival methods have been adapted for all‐sky imaging to facilitate both statistical measurements of scintillation levels and time domain astronomy. This study provides a detailed description of the system design, the analysis algorithms, and the science that can be conducted using results from two prototype DLITE systems in Maryland and New Mexico. Key Points A new, low‐cost radio telescope has been designed and tested to be optimized for ionospheric remote sensing Multiple bright cosmic radio sources are tracked without beam forming to measure ionospheric gradients and scintillations Time domain astronomy of bright sources is possible, for example, monitoring variations in low‐frequency solar emission
ISSN:0048-6604
1944-799X
DOI:10.1029/2021RS007298