@article{bibcite_403, author = {Nathaniel Frissell and John Ackermann and Jesse Alexander and Robert Benedict and William Blackwell and Rachel Boedicker and Stephen Cerwin and Kristina Collins and Scott Cowling and Chris Deacon and Devin Diehl and Francesca Di Mare and Timothy Duffy and Laura Edson and William Engelke and James Farmer and Rachel Frissell and Robert Gerzoff and John Gibbons and Gwyn Griffiths and Sverre Holm and Frank Howell and Stephen Kaeppler and George Kavanagh and David Kazdan and Hyomin Kim and David Larsen and Vincent Ledvina and William Liles and Sam Lo and Michael Lombardi and Elizabeth MacDonald and Julius Madey and Thomas McDermott and David McGaw and Robert McGwier and Gary Mikitin and Ethan Miller and Cathryn Mitchell and Aidan Montare and Cuong Nguyen and Peter Nordberg and Gareth Perry and Gerard Piccini and Stanley Pozerski and Robert Reif and Jonathan Rizzo and Robert Robinett and Veronica Romanek and Simal Sami and Diego Sanchez and Muhammad Sarwar and Jay Schwartz and Lawrence Serra and Ward Silver and Tamitha Skov and David Swartz and David Themens and Francis Tholley and Mary West and Ronald Wilcox and David Witten and Ben Witvliet and Nisha Yadav}, title = {Heliophysics and amateur radio: citizen science collaborations for atmospheric, ionospheric, and space physics research and operations}, abstract = {

The amateur radio community is a global, highly engaged, and technical community with an intense interest in space weather, its underlying physics, and how it impacts radio communications. The large-scale observational capabilities of distributed instrumentation fielded by amateur radio operators and radio science enthusiasts offers a tremendous opportunity to advance the fields of heliophysics, radio science, and space weather. Well-established amateur radio networks like the RBN, WSPRNet, and PSKReporter already provide rich, ever-growing, long-term data of bottomside ionospheric observations. Up-and-coming purpose-built citizen science networks, and their associated novel instruments, offer opportunities for citizen scientists, professional researchers, and industry to field networks for specific science questions and operational needs. Here, we discuss the scientific and technical capabilities of the global amateur radio community, review methods of collaboration between the amateur radio and professional scientific community, and review recent peer-reviewed studies that have made use of amateur radio data and methods. Finally, we present recommendations submitted to the U.S. National Academy of Science Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024{\textendash}2033 for using amateur radio to further advance heliophysics and for fostering deeper collaborations between the professional science and amateur radio communities. Technical recommendations include increasing support for distributed instrumentation fielded by amateur radio operators and citizen scientists, developing novel transmissions of RF signals that can be used in citizen science experiments, developing new amateur radio modes that simultaneously allow for communications and ionospheric sounding, and formally incorporating the amateur radio community and its observational assets into the Space Weather R2O2R framework. Collaborative recommendations include allocating resources for amateur radio citizen science research projects and activities, developing amateur radio research and educational activities in collaboration with leading organizations within the amateur radio community, facilitating communication and collegiality between professional researchers and amateurs, ensuring that proposed projects are of a mutual benefit to both the professional research and amateur radio communities, and working towards diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities.

}, year = {2023}, journal = {Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences}, volume = {10}, month = {Apr-11-2024}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2023.1184171/fullhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspas.2023.1184171/full}, doi = {10.3389/fspas.2023.1184171}, language = {eng}, }