The Ramfjordmoen area, 30 km drive south from Tromsø, is the home for most of the ground based observation of the upper atmosphere from mainland Norway. Here we find the European Incoherent Scatter facilty (EISCAT) with its radars and ionospheric heating equipment. The University of Tromsø was the first to establish a field station at this location, this being the first building a visitor encounters on driving into the site.

The field station houses two radars, an "ionosonde" and a middle-frequency ("MF") system, both of which are in continual operation 24/7. Also, optical instruments owned by international co-workes are present and maintained by Tromsø Geophysical Observatory.

Ionosonde
This kind of radar examines the layering of the ionised component of the upper atmosphere. Originally an instrument to investigate the capability of the ionosphere to reflect radio waves thus enabling communication over long distances, data are often used nowadays for climate research. Ionospheric soundings using this kind of instrument have been performed regularly from Tromsø since 1935. Today, the ionosonde is a collaboration between TGO and Qinetic.

MF radar
This system montors winds and turbulence in the height regime 60-120 km, yielding information every 5 minutes. The data are used to build up climatologies of atmospheric winds, tides, waves and turbulence. The radar was the first one to be installed at Ramfordmoen and has been in operation since 1975.  The radar is a collaboration between Nagoya University (Japan), University of Saskatchewan (Canada) and University of Tromsø.