DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17179169
title: PHaRLAP 3D Ray Tracing Results for 10 MHz Link between Beacon WWV and K2MFF Station on July 1, 2021

description: These 3D HF Radio propagation results were created using the HF propagation toolbox, PHaRLAP, created by Dr Manuel Cervera, Defense Science and Technology Group, Australia (manuel.cervera@dsto.defence.gov.au). This toolbox is available by request from its author. The IRI 2020 Model used to generate these ray tracing results was developed by  Bilitza et al. (2022) at the NASA GSFC Heliospheric Physics Lab.

 

Files in the 'all_ray_data_2021_07_01.zip' archive are named as follows:

The Matlab toolbox function `raytrace_3d` was used to generate these two sets of output, "ray_data" and "ray_path_data", distinguished in these filenames by the prefixes "ray_data_N_" and "ray_N_", respectively. The two sets of numbers appended to each filename "AA_BB.mat" refer to the maximum number of ground hops attempted by the PHaRLAP engine (AA), and the UT hour of day for which the simulated ionosphere was generated (BB). "AA" ranges from 1 to 4, and "BB" ranges from 1-24. These data products are saved as matlab `struct` objects, and can be loaded into Matlab directly to reveal the properties of "ray_data" and "ray_path_data" described below.

Files in the 'all_ray_data_2021_07_01_csv_sorted.zip' archive are named as follows:

ray_data Files - 'RAY_hpA_hrB_elC_brD_fqE.csv', where A corresponds to the number of hops the ray has accomplished, B corresponds to the hour simulated for the ray, C is the launch elevation for the ray, D is the launch bearing of the ray, and E is the simulated frequency of the ray.ray_path_data Files - 'DATA_hpA_hrB.csv', where A corresponds to the number of hops the contained rays have accomplished, and B corresponds to the hour simulated for that group of rays.

These files contain the following properties of the simulated rays:

ray_data - lat, lon, ground_range, group_range, phase_path, initial_elev, final_elev, initial_bearing, final_bearing, total_absorption, derivative_absorption, TEC_path, Doppler_shift, apogee, geometric_path_length, frequency, nhops_attempted, ray_label, NRT_elapsed_time

ray_path_data - initial_elev, initial_bearing, frequency, lat, lon, height, group_range, phase_path, refractive index, group_refractive_index, wavenorm_ray_angle, wavenorm_B_angle, polariz_mag, wave_Efield_tilt, volume_polariz_filt, electron_density, geomag_x, geomag_y, geomag_z, geometric_distance, collision_frequency, absorption

Additional details regarding the contents of each of these fields can be found in PHaRLAP's documentation, available at https://www.dst.defence.gov.au/our-technologies/pharlap-provision-high-frequency-raytracing-laboratory-propagation-studies.

The `raytrace_3d` function was run for a total of 251 rays, each with an initial launch elevation equally spaced between 0° and 50° (stepsize of 0.2°), an initial bearing of 79.6562150173589°, from WWV station in Fort Collins, Colorado (40.67583063°, -105.038933178°) to K2MFF station at the New Jersey Insitute of Technology (40.742018, -74.178975), and a simulated transmission frequency of 10 MHz. This function was called on to simulate a maximum of 1, 2, 3 and 4 ground hops seperately for each hour of July 1, 2021.The IRI 2020 model used to generate these results was initialized at an R12 sunspot number of 57, and was regenerated for the start of each hour of July 1, 2021.
description: The structure of 'all_ray_data_2021_07_01_csv_sorted.zip' is as follows: '#_Hop/' - Subdirectories containing data for rays marked as completing "#" amount of hops (ranging from 1-4) between Tx and Rx.'#_Hop/##_Hour/' - Subdirectories containing data for rays which have completed a number of "#" hops, at a simulated UT hour of "##"'Data/' - Subdirectory containing output of "ray_path_data" from raytrace_3d.mat, which summarizes the behavior of fans of rays, calculated per hour, and per number of hops.
description: This version 1.1.0 has been created in order to present the data in version 1.0.0 in a .csv format, for easier parsing using methods other than a MATLAB interpreter. Additionally, a Github repository containing the MATLAB code used to generate and parse these datafiles can be found linked below, titled 'PHARvis'.