First results from a low cost software defined radio system monitoring VHF equatorial ionospheric scintillations in the Indian sector

Scintillations of radio frequency signals due to the ionosphere, despite having been studied for decades, is still an active area of research. Of particular interest is the scintillations near the geomagnetic equator, where such scintillations can be strong enough to cause disruptions to satellite communications. In this paper, a low cost system to monitor VHF scintillations is described. The system called the Personal Ionospheric Experiment (PIE) makes use of a widely available software defined radio (SDR) to perform the measurements. The use of an SDR vastly enhances the flexibility, especially in environments with non-negligible radio frequency interference (RFI). A simple technique to effectively subtract out transient RFI commonly found in radio data is detailed, and tested with data collected over several months. The utility of the proposed system is demonstrated with the analysis of a night-time scintillation patch; a few daytime scintillations are also reported. Therefore this paper demonstrates the feasibility of conducting useful low-cost radio science experiments in semi-urban locations with RFI, encouraging similar citizen science initiatives.