Ionospheric Heating Facility, located near the small town of Vasilsursk about 100 km eastward from Nizhniy Novgorod in Russia, is a laboratory for ionosphere research. Its ionospheric heater, similar to the American HAARP, is capable of radiating about 190 MW, effective radiated power (ERP) on short waves. This facility is operated by the radiophysical research institute NIRFI in Nizhny Novgorod.
Technical information
The frequency range of the heating facility is from 4.5 to 9.3 MHz. The facility consists of three 250 kW broadcasting transmitters and a 144 crossed dipole antenna-array with dimensions of 300 m x 300 m. At the middle of the operating frequency range (4.5 – 9.3 MHz) a maximum zenith gain of about 260 (~24 dB) is reached, the ERP of the facility is 190 MW (~83 dbW).
I'm sure you have heard of Over The Horizon Radar.
HAARP is in a key positoin directly accross from Russia. It is part of our early warning system.
What we are not supposed to know is, we use it to monitor foreign satellites half way around the world, and also helps the ELF communications with submarines and ships around the world.
The universities uses it in their studies to simulate and control ionospheric processes that might alter the performance of communication, and the military for surveillance systems.
The university studies helps to compress the ionisphere, which makes it easier to bend the military signals in a curve just enough to bounce off the compressed ionisphere and over the horizon to monitor russian satellites and communicate with our own on the other side of the earth.
Another reason is we have had more solar flare activity than any other known period in time. The government is very concerned about this because the solar activity has been weakening our ionisphere. Not only making military communications more difficult, but it has long term implications for human life because there is no sign the solar flares will decrease their activity, and if the ionisphere is weakened too much, we will start losing our own atmosphere.
The ionisphere is like a protective shell that keeps our atmosphere from leaking out into space. The government is trying to solve the problem quietly because they are afraid population panic, by people fearing a doomsday.