Signal Comparison of Fourth State Communications Heater | Signal Phantom
12Back to back signal comparison of improvements made by staff from September 2022 tests with 120Hz amplifier hum to January 2023 suppression. Located on the Northern Colorado / Wyoming border sits one of the newest high-power HF facilities for ionospheric research with an emphasis on Field Aligned Irregularities within the thermosphere. Fourth State Communications, LLC awarded a sum $1,600,000 with serveral USAF contracts though the SBIR/STTR program seeks to perfect a method of establishing over the horizon VHF and UHF point to point data communications by modifying a region of the thermosphere by means of transmitting high frequency electromagnetic energy which is used to induce an electric field strength between .1V/m and .3V/m at altitudes varying between 150 – 350 km based on Critical Frequency and seasonal variations. The induced electric field will aid in creation of High Frequency Ionized Lines, also referred to as High Frequency Plasma Lines (HFIL/HFPL) with an area ranging between 5 to 10 km wide and 1 – 5 km high at the HFIL/HFPL altitude. This artificially modified area of the thermosphere will allow two or more distant ground-based transceiving stations within line-of-sight of the High Frequency Ionized Lines / High Frequency Plasma Lines region to be isotropically repeated establishing viable link budget beyond line of site. The repeated data signal is modified from its original carrier frequency and summed with the frequency used by the high frequency transmitter, in this case 4.5MHz. This Enhanced Thermo-Scatter System or ("ETSS") technique will provide research into data compression techniques for link establishment between 30MHz and 500MHz in both half duplex and full duplex modes at estimated speeds as high as 200Mbps and distances greater than 1000 miles relevant to USAF CONOPS.
The facility is located outside of Cheyenne on a 5-acer sub plot of land owned by Cheyenne Leads in the Swan Ranch Rail Park at 6997 Trumpeter Drive N41 3 16 W104 53 33. Construction and permitting of new three phase 800A utility power fused at 400A, control house, transmitter house and main array began in the Spring of 2022 and was completed in Summer 2022. Equipment performance testing took place between September 12th and September 18th 2022 with the first ETSS test conducted between Jan 24 and Jan 26th 2023. The 40-foot Conex transmitter house maintains the bulk of hardware used during tests, to include the 300w intermediate power amplifiers, RF splitters, phase and impedance matching networks which then drive eight isolated power amplifiers produced by defunct Los Angeles Amplifier Systems, model CE-10000. The CE-10000 are designed to operate within 2.85 and 5.3 MHz. The CE-10000 amplifiers will be used to deliver 10kW of carrier power to each individual driven dipole within the heater array. The shielded control house provides the main frequency control via Leo Bodnar DO signal generator and phase measurement control instruments which feed the transmitter house.
The main array is composed of four cross-dipole, three element yagi antenna structures cut for single frequency prototype operation at 4.5MHz, each cross-dipole antenna is constructed of two separate half wave isolated dipoles rotated at 90 degrees from each other which act as the driven element. This allows for a circular O polarized radiated wave of Poynting Flux to be focused vertically from the horizon. The arrays gain produces 4.1 Megawatts of effective radiated power with an estimated gain of 17.1dB utilized for maintaining the modified HFIL/HFPL electric field of .2V/m. Because the main array is physically limited to a single frequency, D-Layer absorption in the ionosphere at 4.5MHz will dictate operational testing during daylight hours based on Critical Frequency. Remote sounding receivers would typically be used for monitoring altitude changes in the thermosphere leading to adjustments of the RF signal generators amplitude and carrier frequency which are also curtailed by the physical limitations of the 50 Ohm unbalanced fed array at this time. NOAA BC840 and a remote Scion VIPIR will be used for real time ionosphere mapping. However future plans to modify the array for operations between 2.85MHz and 5.3MHz have been discussed in order to create a larger window of usable operating times.
The eight CE-10000 power amplifiers were acquired at action from the defunct High-Power Auroral Stimulation Radio Observatory or HIPAS near Fairbanks, Alaska operated under UCLA plasma physics lab which was the forerunner of HAARP. The Federal Communications Commissions’ Office of Experimental Technology issued nonrenewable special temporary authorization under call sign WS9XOM which expired on November 02, 2022. Subsequent experimental part 5 framework licensing re-issued under WN2XDS and WU9XRD. All external consultants have signed NDAs.
By Tyler Stampfli, KA0KA for SignalPhantom.com
Other Videos By Signal Phantom
Other Statistics
Frequency Statistics For Signal Phantom
Signal Phantom currently has 1,621 views spread across 4 videos for Frequency. Less than an hour worth of Frequency videos were uploaded to his channel, or 1.10% of the total watchable video on Signal Phantom's YouTube channel.