Posted through the URSI-Commission-G Mailing List: Cancel IONO - LOFAR - SKADS Consulting Meeting

[Christian HANUISE]

Dear Colleagues,

With regret the organizers of the IONO - LOFAR - SKADS Consulting Meeting have 
decided to cancel this meeting in October and postpone the discussions to an 
upcoming meeting in Vaxjo, Sweden on 16-18 June, 2008.

Because of extremely busy schedules and teaching obligations also many of the 
persons that reacted positively to the first announcement of the meeting are not 
able to attend the meeting. 

We trust that this timely notice ensures that no travel costs have been incurred 
by those people that did sign up for the meeting.

The agenda for the Vaxjo meeting will address the following issues:
 1) use of GPS/Galileo data for ionospheric research and LOFAR calibration and 
   observations and
 2) use of the LOFAR calibration products for ionospheric research.

The LOFAR and also the SKA calibration procedures will result in dramatic 
improvements of the accuracy of the ionospheric TEC function(x,y,az,el) well 
beyond the current GPS(/Galileo) processing noise of 0.01 TECU (1 radian at 
75 MHz). While GPS provides an excellent first step for LOFAR calibration, the 
ionospheric LOFAR output data would improve this accuracy by several orders of 
magnitude.

We hope that this enticing potential of LOFAR and SKA will be stimulating enough
to participate in the Vaxjo meeting and to forge a link between the radio 
astronomy community and the ionospheric research community.

Kind regards,

Willem A. Baan     (ASTRON, Dwingeloo)
Christian Hanuise (LPCE/CNRS, Orleans)


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Dear Colleagues,

LOFAR is a multiple application sensor network instrument that will centered 
in The Netherlands with an increasing number of outstations located in various 
European countries. Operating frequencies for the astronomical applications 
of the instrument will be in the 30 - 80 MHz and 120 - 240 MHz range (for more 
information see www.lofar.org). 

The LOFAR operating frequencies for astronomy require a good and frequent
calibration of the ionosphere. This calibration data is of interest for mid-latitude
ionospheric research and could result in practical data applications.

In order to bring together the LOFAR group and interested ionospheric scientist
we would like to organize an

IONO-LOFAR Consulting meeting 

on 17 - 19 October, 2007 in Dwingeloo, The Netherlands.

The purpose of this meeting is to bring together the ionospheric community in 
Europe and the LOFAR Project. 

The agenda for the meeting includes:
1. characteristics and modeling of the mid-latitude ionosphere,
2. calibration schemes for the LOFAR system,
3. evaluation of ionospheric calibration procedures implemented in LOFAR,
4. use of ionospheric calibration results for mid-latitude research,
5. identification and specification of ionospheric data products for other applications.

We would like to invite all scientists interested and involved in mid-latitude ionospheric
research and all members of the LOFAR project interested in ionospheric calibration.
Some initial contacts along these lines have already been established in various countries. 

We are searching for partial support for this meeting but the opportunities are limited.
 
We note that a meeting is also planned in Vaxjo or Lund for June 2008 that will include 
a workshop on ionospheric research with LOFAR 
 
I hope we can welcome you at Dwingeloo for the IONO-LOFAR Consulting meeting.

Kind regards,

Willem A. Baan  - ASTRON

Christian Hanuise - CNRS Orleans




Willem A. Baan 
NFRA -- ASTRON
POBox 2    7990 AA Dwingeloo 
The Netherlands  
voice     (+31) 521-595-773
switch   (+31) 521-595-100
fax        (+31) 521-595-101  
mobile   (+31) 651-433-470
email    baan at astron.nl 
WWW   www.astron.nl  
 
ASTRON --- The Netherlands Foundation
                     for Research in Astronomy

-- 
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Christian HANUISE
LPCE/CNRS
3A av. de la Recherche Scientifique
45071 Orléans Cedex 2
France

Tel. +33 (0)2 38 25 79 83
Fax. +33 (0)2 38 63 12 34
Cel. +33 (0)6 81 51 82 74

christian.hanuise at cnrs-orleans.fr
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