A small network of HF beacon transmitters and receivers has been deployed in Peru for specifying the F region ionosphere in the sector. The effort is motivated by ionospheric disturbances associated with equatorial spread F (ESF) and specifically disturbances arising under inauspicious conditions for ESF as determined by numerical simulations. The beacons operate at dual frequencies (2.72 and 3.64 MHz). They are CW but incorporate pseudorandom noise (PRN) coding so that the group delays of the links can be measured. Other observables are power, Doppler shift, bearing, and polarization. A transmitter is currently deployed at Ancon (11∘46’37’’S, 77∘09’1’’W, 51 m above sea level (asl)), while receivers are at Jicamarca (11∘57’5.8’’S, 76∘52’27’’W, 510 m asl) and Huancayo (12∘02’30’’S, 75∘19’15’’W, 3315 m asl). An algorithm for inverting the bea...

We present results from a continuing effort to simulate equatorial spread F (ESF) using observations from the Jicamarca Radio Observatory near Lima, Peru. Jicamarca measures vertical and zonal plasma drifts along with plasma number density profiles overhead. The number density profiles are used to initialize a three-dimensional regional model of the ionosphere capable of simulating plasma density irregularities produced during ESF conditions. The vertical drifts measurements are used to drive the numerical simulation continuously. Neutral winds are derived from the new Horizontal Wind Model '14 (HWM-14) model, and the zonal winds are scaled so as to make the zonal plasma flows at the start of the simulation agree with the ISR profile measurements. Coherent scatter radar imagery from Jicamarca is used to validate the simulation results. Campaign data were collected in April and December, ...

The Jicamarca Radio Observatory (JRO) two-dimensional square array radar system operating at ~ 6-m wavelength was used to study the Moon and low Earth orbit satellites using the Range-Doppler inverse synthetic aperture radar technique also known as Delay-Doppler imaging. The radar data was collected on Oct 21, 2015. A circularly polarized coded pulse was transmitted from a quarter-array antenna segment during lunar transit over JRO. Dual-linear polarization receive systems were employed on two quarter-array segments and on two 1/64th array modules giving the longest possible baselines across the transit path. A Range-Doppler mapping technique that uses the rotational motion of the targets and an autofocusing motion and ionospheric delay compensation technique has been implemented to generate the two-dimensional maps of the point-target (Satellite) and range-spread target (Moon). A review...

We argue that combining a high-power, large-aperture radar transmitter with several large-aperture receiving arrays to make a geospace radar—a radar capable of probing near-Earth space from the upper troposphere through to the solar corona—would transform geospace research. We review the emergence of incoherent scatter radar in the 1960s as an agent that unified early, pioneering research in geospace in a common theoretical, experimental, and instrumental framework, and we suggest that a geospace radar would have a similar effect on future developments in space weather research. We then discuss recent developments in radio-array technology that could be exploited in the development of a geospace radar with new or substantially improved capabilities compared to the radars in use presently. A number of applications for a geospace radar with the new and improved capabilities are reviewe...

Poster presented at the 2020 CEDAR Virtual Meeting, June 22-26.

The mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region is dominated globally by dynamics at various scales: planetary waves, tides, gravity waves, and stratified turbulence. The latter two can coexist and be significant at horizontal scales less than 500 km, scales that are difficult to measure. This study presents a recently deployed multistatic specular meteor radar system, SIMONe Peru, which can be used to observe these scales. The radars are positioned at and around the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, which is located at the magnetic equator. Besides presenting preliminary results of typically reported large‐scale features, like the dominant diurnal tide at low latitudes, we show results on selected days of spatially and temporally resolved winds obtained with two methods based on: (a) estimation of mean wind and their gradients (gradient method), and (b) an inverse theory with Tikhonov r...