Receiver system design for crowdsourced experiments on the effects of a solar eclipse on low-frequency radio wave propagation

摘要

The goal of this project is to conduct the first geographically distributed, low-frequency skywave propagation measurements during a solar eclipse. There is a lack of knowledge about how radio waves below frequencies of 500 kHz are affected by a total eclipse and a lack of experimental data reflecting these low-frequency radio wave transmissions at geographically diverse locations during an eclipse. A low-frequency band receiver system for people across the United States to assemble and use is designed, allowing for a crowd-sourced collection of measurements of relative signal strength of the WWVB and Dixon low-frequency station signals during the eclipse over North America on August 21, 2017.