- Chicago, Illinois, United States
We introduce and analyze the first data from an array of closely spaced Global Positioning System (GPS) scintillation receivers established in the auroral zone in late 2013 to measure spatial and temporal variations in L-band signals at... more
We introduce and analyze the first data from an array of closely spaced Global Positioning System (GPS) scintillation receivers established in the auroral zone in late 2013 to measure spatial and temporal variations in L-band signals at 100-1000 meters and sub-second scales. The seven receivers of the Scintillation Auroral GPS Array (SAGA) are sited at Poker Flat Research Range (PFRR), Alaska. The receivers produce 100-s scintillation indices and 100 Hz carrier phase and raw in-phase and quadrature-phase samples. SAGA is the largest existing array with baseline lengths of the ionospheric diffractive Fresnel scale at L-band. With an initial array of five receivers, we identify a period of simultaneous amplitude and phase scintillation. We compare SAGA power and phase data with collocated 630.0 nm all-sky images of an auroral arc and incoherent scatter radar electron precipitation measurements, to illustrate how SAGA can be used in multi-instrument observations for sub-kilometer scale studies.
