Site
The project site (62°23′30″N 145°09′03″W / 62.39167°N 145.15083°W / 62.39167; -145.15083) is north of Gakona, Alaska just west of Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park. An environmental impact statement led to permission for an array of up to 180 antennas to be erected. The HAARP has been constructed at the previous site of an over-the-horizon radar (OTH) installation. A large structure, built to house the OTH now houses the HAARP control room, kitchen, and offices. Several other small structures house various instruments. The HAARP site has been constructed in three distinct phases:
- The Developmental Prototype (DP) had 18 antenna elements, organized in three columns by six rows. It was fed with a total of 360 kilowatts (kW) combined transmitter output power. The DP transmitted just enough power for the most basic of ionospheric testing.
- The Filled Developmental Prototype (FDP) had 48 antenna units arrayed in six columns by eight rows, with 960 kW of transmitter power. It was fairly comparable to other ionospheric heating facilities. This was used for a number of successful scientific experiments and ionospheric exploration campaigns over the years.
- The Final IRI (FIRI) is the final build of the IRI. It has 180 antenna units, organized in 15 columns by 12 rows, yielding a theoretical maximum gain of 31 dB. A total of 3.6 MW of transmitter power will feed it, but the power is focused in the upward direction by the geometry of the large phased array of antennas which allow the antennas to work together in controlling the direction. As of March 2007, all the antennas were in place, the final phase was completed and the antenna array was undergoing testing aimed at fine-tuning its performance to comply with safety requirements required by regulatory agencies. The facility officially began full operations in its final 3.6 MW transmitter power completed status in the summer of 2007, yielding an effective radiated power (ERP) of 5.1 Gigawatts or 97.1 dBW at maximum output. However, the site typically operates at a fraction of that value due to the lower antenna gain exhibited at standard operational frequencies.
Read more about this topic: High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
Famous quotes containing the word site:
“It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination—unstanchable as that red flood may be—but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“The site of the true bottomless financial pit is the toy store. It’s amazing how much a few pieces of plastic and paper will sell for if the purchasers are parents or grandparent, especially when the manufacturers claim their product improves a child’s intellectual or physical development.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I am not aware that any man has ever built on the spot which I occupy. Deliver me from a city built on the site of a more ancient city, whose materials are ruins, whose gardens cemeteries. The soil is blanched and accursed there, and before that becomes necessary the earth itself will be destroyed.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)