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Vertical ionograms and dispersive bandwidth for an oblique path
Author(s) -
Lin K. H.,
Yeh K. C.,
Soicher H.,
Reinisch Bodo W.,
Gamache R. R.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
radio science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1944-799X
pISSN - 0048-6604
DOI - 10.1029/rs024i004p00519
Subject(s) - ionogram , ionosonde , bandwidth (computing) , oblique case , ionosphere , optics , physics , computational physics , mathematics , geophysics , computer science , telecommunications , linguistics , philosophy , electron density , quantum mechanics , electron
The ionosphere is known to be a dispersive medium. Additionally, for a fixed ground distance inan oblique propagation geometry, the ray of each Fourier component of a pulse follows its own path in a phenomenon known as frequency splitting. As a consequence of these two factors distortion results. Under the approximation of a quadratic phase channel, this distortion is most conveniently characterized by a quantity, known as the dispersive bandwidth. Formulas for the dispersive bandwidth have been derived both for the linear layer and the parabolic layer and are given without showing derivations. A technique has been developed to analyze the vertical ionogram for dispersive bandwidth. This technique has been applied to several days of digital ionosonde data. The resulting values of dispersive bandwidth are reasonable and plotted over a diurnal cycle. Such a technique should be further developed as a step toward eventual application to ionospheric informatics.