CEDAR email: SAVE THE DATE: Thurs., July 7th 12 pm ET: ASAP Lecture/Discussion "A Preliminary Plan to Quickly Restore Utility to the Arecibo 305m Telescope"

[Eliana Nossa]

Dear colleagues:

 The Arecibo Science Advocacy Partnership (ASAP) is inviting Dale Ferguson
to talk about his ideas on how to restore some of the Arecibo 305m
radio-telescope capabilities, mostly related to the Aeronomy facilities.
The Arecibo platform collapsed in December 2020.  However, the collapse did
not affect the expensive transmitters, generators, and other crucial
instrumentation used for the ISR and HF facilities.  At the talk, Dale will
present a plan to restart ionospheric and satellite observations at
Arecibo, using the existing infrastructure and performing some
basic repairs.

ASAP is interested in hearing your feedback as part of the CEDAR
community.  Please save the date and join us.

On behalf of the ASAP board,


Eliana Nossa







Dear Colleagues,
Lecture/Discussion: Thurs., 7th July, 12 noon ET
Title: *A Preliminary Plan to Quickly Restore Utility to the Arecibo 305m
Telescope*
Dr. Dale Ferguson — AFRL Spaceforce
(A fuller biography is given below)
Zoom Link: To be sent 24-48 hours prior to the event

*Abstract:*
Since the collapse of the Arecibo 305m telescope platform on Dec. 1, 2020,
there has been much discussion of building a new Arecibo telescope or
rebuilding the facility that was destroyed. In the collapse, the tops of
the three platform support towers were sheared off, and the feed arm fell
free from the swinging platform and destroyed 25% of the dish. Fortunately,
the Control Building, with the computers, spectrometers, masers, atomic
clocks, 430 MHz Klystrons, etc., was spared.
By replacing the main dish support cables and resurfacing with coarse mesh,
the main dish can be repaired as a reflector for < HF operation.  By
replacing the damaged aluminum panels to make the dish whole again, RF
operations at up to 500 MHz can be resumed. In this presentation,
we outline the steps that can be taken to restore HF (High Frequency, 3-30
MHz) ionospheric heating, 430 MHz ionospheric incoherent scattering radar,
passive radio observations of satellite arcing and pulsars, and to extend
the field of view to 47 degrees from the zenith. This would restore and
improve much of the utility of the Arecibo dish. Part of this plan involves
supporting, positioning and pointing novel point feeds from
lightweight football-camera-like
cables, strung from the rebuilt tower tops. It is believed that the dish
may thus become broadly useful long before replacement facilities can
be engineered
and constructed.

This event is a further in the series of ASAP “lunchtime” talks/discussions
exploring issues and proposals pertinent to Arecibo’s future.  Recordings
of the earlier talks can be found on the areciboscience.org website.

Please reserve the date, and look for the zoom link to be sent 24-48 hours
prior  to the event.

Best regards and wishes,
ASAP Secretary




Dale C. Ferguson received the Ph.D. degree from The University of Arizona,
Tucson, in 1974. He is currently the Lead for Spacecraft Charging Science
and Technology with the Space Vehicles Division, Air Force
Research Laboratory (AFRL), Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, NM. From
1978 TO 1981 Dale was a pulsar staff member at Arecibo. Since 1982, he has
been addressing spacecraft charging problems.  In 2018-2019, he spent six
months in the Arecibo Observatory developing and deploying an instrument to
measure spacecraft charging known as the AFRL DAGGER Project.  The
broadband 327 MHz "Point Feed" was located at the focal surface of the
Arecibo dish.
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