ScintPi: Scintillation and Total Electron Content (TEC) Monitors for Distributed Observations, Education and Citizen Science Initiatives

We devoted efforts towards the development of low-cost ionospheric sensors that, in addition to science, could benefit educational and citizen science efforts. The result of that is ScintPi, a series of GNSS-based monitors that can be used to measure ionospheric perturbations and their effect on transionospheric radio signals. More specifically, the latest version of ScintPi (3.0) can measure the ionospheric total electron content (TEC) along the path of the GNSS signals and the occurrence of amplitude scintillation. In this presentation we will provide an overview of ScintPi followed by a presentation and discussion of observations made with the system. We will also discuss comparisons of our measurements with those made by commercial TEC/scintillation monitors. Finally, we will present an opportunity for those interested in ionospheric science and radio to contribute with distributed observations of the ionosphere over the US using ScintPi 3.0.