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Bruny Island Radio Specrometer, or BIRS, was a radio telescope on Bruny Island that was operated privately by Bill Erickson, who was then a research associate at the University of Tasmania. It was designed to measure relatively low frequency radio emissions from the sun; ranging from around 62 MHz d
own to the lowest possible frequencies that can penetrate the ionosphere, which typically fluctuates between 7 and 13 MHz, but can be as low as 3 MHz. Reliable measurements below 20 MHz are difficult to obtain with ground-based telescopes due to interference, both from local sources and distant ones. BIRS' main purpose was to detect and study coronal type II radio bursts, but has on occasion also measured radio bursts below 3 MHz believed to have originated from Jupiter. In January 2015, BIRS' sustained a hardware failure and has stopped publishing data. Bruny Island, a small island off the southwest coast of Tasmania, was chosen as a location because the low frequency ionospheric cutoff is unusually low in the region and there is relatively little local interference. The antenna was a 21.4m mast that supported two triangular frames with 23 dipoles ranging from 3.05 to 50 m and spaced log...
Listen to the audio guide for Bruny Island Radio Spectrometer Free on WIP — starts by itself when you arrive, even with the screen off