Expansion of the Coverage of Ionosondes for Vertical Ionospheric Sounding by the Application of Satellite Navigation System

Abstract

A possibility of the ionosonde coverage expansion due to applying navigation satellite systems for supplying with the reliable short-wave radio communication acting along extended radio paths including multihop radio paths. It is shown on the basis of processing experimental data that the functionality increase of the vertical sounding ionosonde can be provided using the hardware-software ionospheric sounding complex that uses data of navigation satellites. The application of this complex in the place, where the vertical sounding ionosonde is located, allows to obtain the detailed picture of the electron concentration distribution not only far from the ionosonde but also inside the sounding region itself, along the trajectories that all points located under the ionosphere follow and that cross the responsibility zone of the vertical sounding station. It is shown that it is possible to create the dense network of the ionospheric control on the basis of vertical sounding stations distributed over a territory and hardware-software complexes.