50 years of incoherent scatter radar today!

50 years ago today, Ken Bowles recorded the very first incoherent scatter echoes received from the ionosphere - at least the first published A-scope traces were from 21 October, see Phys. Rev Lett. 1, 454-5, 1958.

The returns were recorded during daylight hours in Illinois, USA, so likely sometime this afternoon or evening our time.

Today, the radars subsequently built by Ken Bowles and Bill Gordon are still operating, together others at Sondrestrom Greenland, Millstone Hill Massachusetts, Poker Flat Alaska, Kharkov Ukraine, Irkutsk Russia, Kyoto Japan, and three at EISCAT in Scandinavia. A new radar at Resolute Bay in northern Canada is expected to be operational later this year and there are plans for several others including one in Antarctica and a radically new facility at EISCAT.

Over the years, the radars have made, and continue to make, substantial and highly significant contributions to upper atmospheric research and today the field is probably more exciting and full of new prospects and ideas than at any time since the first efforts 50 years ago.

Congratulations to all who have developed the technique from those early beginnings and made the field the success that it is today!

Bring on the next 50 years!