The Jicamarca Radio Observatory is a research facility of the Geophysical Institute of Peru, located near the city of Lima, that has been conducting observations and studies of the equatorial ionosphere for more than 50 years. In these notes we focus to the period of its construction and roughly the first decade of its operation (1960–1974). We emphasize observational and instrumental developments that shaped the capabilities of one of the most powerful incoherent scatter radars in the world.

Sir Alec Westley Skempton was an English civil engineer and Professor of Soil Mechanics at Imperial College London. He is often referred to as one of the founding fathers of soil mechanics in the UK and around the world. Skempton established the soil mechanics course at Imperial College London and was one of the most important engineers of the 20th century.