Ionogram inversion F1-layer treatment effect in raytracing

This paper shows the importance of the F1-layer shape in the electron density profiles obtained from ionograms with different inversion techniques when the profiles are used in ray tracing. This layer often controls the propagation on the path with ranges less than about 2000 km, particularly for spring and summer periods. Ionograms from two different stations, Hainan (19.4N, 109E) and El Arenosillo (37.1N, -6.7E), obtained during the month of July 2002 (average sunspot number: 99.6) during geomagnetic quiet conditions (Ap-index between 9 and 15) are analyzed. The profiles obtained with two different inversion techniques with different options are used together with the ray tracing program of the Proplab-Pro software. This program calculates the features of the received signal as angle of arrival, path length, height of reflection and range for each given profile assumed to define a spherically symmetric ionosphere in the region along the path. For each ionospheric condition (location, day, hour) the difference between range values obtained with Proplab-Pro program using profiles from the two techniques and the different options (POLAN no valley, POLAN valley, POLAN1-layer and NHPC) are considered.