Unique Student Radar Night 19-20 July 2011

An international group of 49 students and new radar users, together with 14 teachers from all over the world, are gathered in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland during the week 18-23 July 2011. The purpose of the practical incoherent scatter radar (ISR) workshop is to provide the students with hands-on experience in designing and running the radar experiments. This workshop is the first collaborative educational action between the annual AMISR summer school and the EISCAT radar school.

During the night of 19-20 July 2011, the students were successfully running both the local incoherent scatter radar of the Sondrestrom Research Facility in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, and the tristatic EISCAT UHF radar in Tromso Norway, Kiruna Sweden and Sodankyla Finland. Additionally the Poker Flat ISR was operated for the school. Some of the student groups were monitoring the SuperDARN radars during their experiment as well. Data was analysed in real time and further interpreted by the students later during the workshop.

Images above: The Sondrestrom IS radar facility with a 32m antenna, students getting hands on instructions in the radar control room and students looking at the real-time tristatic EISCAT UHF data at the Sondrestrom facility in Kangerlussuaq.