Propagation conditions of 10 MHz signals along the paths between Rostov and Moscow

To determine the conditions for the propagation of HF signals through the ionosphere along various paths, there are several possibilities: (1) ionograms of vertical sounding, (2) ionograms of oblique sounding between transmission and receiver points, (3) receiving signals from transmitters of exact time at fixed frequencies (here ~10 MHz), (4) using ionospheric models. This paper presents the results of a comprehensive study that implements all these possibilities. They refer to the propagation of HF signals on reciprocal paths between Rostov and Moscow during the period of the lowest solar activity of cycle 24 (April-May 2020). It is shown that the maximum usable frequency (MUF) of propagation through the F2 layer of the ionosphere in the overwhelming majority of cases did not exceed 10 MHz both in the experiment and according to model calculations. The signals were propagated through the Es layer. If earlier it was shown that such a joint experiment allows revealing the presence of traveling ionospheric disturbances, the results of this work emphasize the role of the Es layer.

Comparing Ionospheric MUF using IRI16 Model with Mid-Latitude Ionosonde Observations and Associated with Strong Geomagnetic Storms

High frequency (HF) radio wave propagation depends on the ionosphere status which is changed with the time of day, season, and solar activity conditions. In this research, ionosonde observations were used to calculate the values of maximum usable frequency (MUF) the ionospheric F2- layer during strong geomagnetic storms (Dst ≤ -100 nT) which were compared with the predicted MUF for the same layer by using IRI-16 model. Data from years 2015 and 2017, during which five strong geomagnetic storms occurred, were selected from two Japanese ionosonde stations (Kokubunji and Wakkanai) located at the mid-latitude region. The results of the present work do not show a good correlation between the observed and predicted MUF values for F2- layer during the selected events of strong geomagnetic storms at these stations. Thus, there is a further need to improve the IRI-16 model for better matching with the observations during strong geomagnetic storms.

ESTIMATION OF THE ERROR IN PREDICTING THE MAXIMUM OBSERVED FREQUENCY IN CONDITIONS OF MINIMAL SOLAR ACTIVITY

The results of experimental studies of variations in the maximum observed fre-quency in 2016–2019 are presented on the mid-latitude route Cyprus – Rostov-on-Don. The accuracy of forecasting the maximum usable frequency when setting the state of the ionosphere using the IRI-2016 model is estimated. It is shown that in calm geophysical conditions, the typical values of the root-mean-square deviations of the maximum usable frequency from the maximum observed frequency reach 2,6 MHz.

Oblique Ionograms Automatic Scaling Algorithm OIASA application to the ionograms recorded by Ebro observatory ionosonde

The oblique ionograms automatic scaling algorithm (OIASA), developed at the INGV for the identification of trace of oblique ionograms, allows the determination of the maximum usable frequency (MUF) for communication between the transmitter and receiver, automatically rejecting poor quality ionograms. A test of the algorithm using data from a campaign of oblique soundings between Dourbes (50.1°N, 4.6°E) and Roquetes (40.8°N, 0.5°E) has been performed. Oblique soundings from three different campaigns have been studied, covering different geomagnetic conditions, in order to study the behavior of the autoscaling algorithm under quiet and perturbed geomagnetic periods. The reported results demonstrate that OIASA performance is not influenced by geomagnetic or ionospheric activity conditions. This demonstrates a satisfactory performance of the automatic scaling algorithm, even under different geomagnetic conditions, the potential application of OIASA as a near-real-time tool for ionospheric monitoring purposes, and its performance for tracking ionospheric effects caused by space weather events.

Application of ionospheric tomography for high frequency oblique incidence ray tracing

<p>Recognizing the applicability of tomographic imaging in the ionosphere, the reconstruction method has been applied to generate more realistic low latitude ionospheric background based on the Ionex TEC data and also direct measurement TEC data over West Bengal, India. Using these backgrounds, ray tracing of high frequency waves has been performed. Influence of Earth’s magnetic field and also the existence of horizontal gradient of electron concentration in the ionosphere are considered separately for analyzing the ray tracing algorithm. Evaluation of ray tracing parameters and maximum usable frequency for different ground range ensures the possibility of application of ionospheric tomography technique for accurate ray tracing. The analysis shows accurate ray tracing for HF waves, thus defeating the restriction of choice of ionospheric model for analytical ray tracing methods. Performance analysis of the ray tracing technique presented in this paper ensures the consistency of speed with the other methods.</p>

Interpretation of oblique-incidence ionograms under the assumption of a spherically stratified ionosphere

Oblique sounding ionograms show that an ionogram trace can be of nose shape with typical multipath for which the maximum corresponds to maximum usable frequency. However, ionograms obtained from sounding at short paths are of classical type and do not differ from vertical sounding ionograms in appearance. On the basis of ray tracing in isotropic medium we examined changes in ionogram structure when varying the ground range. It is shown that in a stratified medium, multipath can take place at any nonzero ground range though at short paths, to resolve multipathing in an experiment seems to be impossible. Some possibilities for using the assumption of sphe-rically stratified ionosphere when sounding at long radio paths (of the order of few thousand kilometers) are also under consideration. We compared the distance-frequency characteristics (DFC) produced for horizontally-nonuniform ionosphere defined along the path by IRI-2012 model, as well as for spherical-stratified ionosphere for which the height profile does not depend on horizontal coordinate and agrees with IRI-2012 profile in the middle point of the path. Although the electron density profiles exhibit significant variations along the path, DFCs agree with each other up to fraction of the percent. In this case, the form of the ionogram practically in everything is defined by the vicinity of radio path middle point.