Improving Signal-to-Noise Ratio in Oblique Ionosonde Soundings Using New Hardware Capability of the DPS4D Ionosonde

Travelling Ionospheric Disturbances (TIDs) are ionospheric signatures of atmospheric gravity waves. They can result from a variety of natural or artificial sources. Their identification and tracking is important because the TIDs affect all services that rely on predictable ionospheric radio wave propagation. An operational system for detecting TIDs using the exploitation of the European network of high precision DPS4D ionosondes has recently been developed and implemented [1], see Figure 1 (left). This system is based on the Frequency-Angular Sounding method [2], which uses data obtained from Digisonde-to-Digisonde oblique, single frequency soundings to derive various characteristics of TIDs, see Figure 1 (middle).