Automatic Ionospheric Weather Monitoring With DPS‐4D Ionosonde and ARTIST‐5 Autoscaler: System Performance at a Mid‐Latitude Observatory

The performance of the digital ionospheric sounder at the mid‐latitude site of Dourbes, Belgium (4.6°E, 50.1°N) is evaluated and detailed here in terms of its capability to deliver ionograms of good quality at different sounding rates together with the quality of the automated scaling of ionospheric characteristics done by the dedicated computer software. The instrument is a Lowell Digisonde‐4D, also known as the Digital Portable Sounder 4D (DPS‐4D), equipped with the latest version 5 of the autoscaling software, Automatic Real‐Time Ionogram Scaler with True height. A thorough statistical analysis has been carried out of the automatic processing and scaling of the key ionospheric characteristics: critical frequencies, virtual heights, maximum usable frequency, and propagation factor. This analysis is based on the manually scaled hourly values of the above‐mentioned characteristics for the time period since the installation of the DPS‐4D in April 2011. Based on the analysis, the error bounds (with 95% probability) have been determined for each characteristic. Results are expected to be of particular interest to researchers, developers and users of the great variety of ionosphere/space weather monitoring services worldwide. Key Points Digisonde autoscaling is an important component in real‐time ionospheric monitoring Strong sporadic E layer can adversely affect the autoscaling of some key characteristics Higher sounding rate is possible without substantially affecting autoscaling quality