HAARP on the air Oct 20-24 for Alaska sounding rocket launches

The HAARP ionospheric research transmitter in Gakona, Alaska, is back on the air this week. Its program office at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has scheduled a research campaign for October 20-24 UTC, with transmissions planned from 0530 to 0930 UTC each day somewhere between 2.8 and 10 MHz.

The campaign supports two NASA-style sounding rocket missions launching from Poker Flat Research Range, north of Fairbanks. According to the HAARP notice, INFUSE-II will test a new ultraviolet imager intended for future space telescopes, and DUST-III will carry a miniature laboratory to study how tiny grains of space dust form and grow. The Poker Flat launches will be livestreamed on YouTube at youtube.com/@pokerflatrr.

No frequencies are listed in advance. HAARP says it needs to adjust in real time to ionospheric conditions and coordinate with the launch teams, and that actual transmit days and times are highly variable and subject to change. Transmissions will stay on the frequencies HAARP is authorized for under its FCC experimental license, WI2XFX. The transmitter's supplement notes its Ionospheric Research Instrument tops out at 9.600 MHz, so any correlated signals heard higher up are likely receiver intermodulation or spurious products.

HAARP signals are not voice or data. The program uses one or two carriers with AM, FM, pulse or linear FM sweeps, and never SSB, PSK, FSK or QAM. Some experiments are just a pure carrier, and many cycle on and off over minutes or fractions of a minute. Timing is locked to GPS, and transmissions usually start on the top of the minute and stop at the 30-second mark while the transmitter retunes.

To listen, tune between 0530 and 0930 UTC (12:30 to 4:30 a.m. CDT) on each campaign day. HAARP suggests an SDR with 8 MHz of bandwidth centered on 6.35 MHz to watch the whole range at once, then narrowing in once a carrier appears. A useful shortcut is to check the latest Gakona ionogram on the HAARP Diagnostic Suite page, read the f0F2 critical frequency in its upper-left corner, and tune near that frequency, since many experiments operate at, above or below it. Propagation and beam direction will decide whether you hear anything at all, so there is no guarantee.

There are no specific data requests from investigators this time, but HAARP says reception reports are appreciated and can be submitted through the online form at haarp.gi.alaska.edu/form/reception-reports.