Solar-geophysical activity and scintillation of microwave radio signals propagating through ionized medium

Morphology and main characteristics of ionospheric scintillation, its impacts on navigation and communication systems are provided to help system designers who are involved in the activities related to the development of systems in middle-latitudes. Establishing the constraints imposed by scintillation on the operation of systems will help users to distinguish receiver problems from ionospheric scintillation. Mention is made of the solar activity, geophysical and other processes/factors thought to be responsible for influence on the scintillation. Paper gives a summary of morphology and major scintillation effects experienced for microwave radio signals for the Space-Earth path. Global Ionospheric Propagation Model (GIM) is applied for studying of scintillation effects on microwave radio signals in the Azerbaijan area for worst case scenario.