  IceCube is currently not only the largest neutrino telescope but also one of
the world's most competitive instruments for studying cosmic rays in the PeV to
EeV regime where the transition from galactic to extra-galactic sources should
occur. Further augmenting this observatory with an array of radio sensors in
the 10-100 MHz regime will additionally permit observation of the geomagnetic
radio emission from the air shower. Yielding complementary information on the
shower development a triple-technology array consisting of radio sensors, the
ground sampling stations of IceTop and the in-ice optical modules of IceCube,
should significantly improve the understanding of cosmic rays, as well as
enhance many aspects of the physics reach of the observatory. Here we present
first results from two exploratory setups deployed at the South Pole. Noise
measurements from data taken in two consecutive seasons show a very good
agreement of the predicted and observed response of the antennas designed
specifically for this purpose. The radio background is found to be highly
dominated by galactic noise with a striking absence of anthropogenic radio
emitters in the frequency band from 25-300 MHz. Motivated by the excellent
suitability of the location, we present first performance studies of a proposed
Radio Air-Shower Test Array (RASTA) using detailed MonteCarlo simulation and
discuss the prospects for its installation.
