Preliminary results of SAMEER-Dibrugarh University Digital Ionosonde at Dibrugarh

A digital ionosonde was designed and built by SAMEER, Mumbai in collaboration with Dibrugarh University to suit the needs of equatorial and low latitude region of India. The design objectives were to obtain good SNR to mitigate the heavy noise due to interference and obtain short duration ionograms. Pulse compression by 8 bit and 16 bit bi-phase codes was employed to increase height resolution and noise immunity. 1 Kwatt transmitted power and dual delta antenna transmission is used with dual channel magnetic loop receiver antenna. The basic ionogram recorded by this system called SAMMER-DU Digital Ionosonde (SDDI) is compared with co-located CADI ionograms. Reasonably clear trace of E and F layer is obtained without coherent pulse integration and pulse coding. The performance of the coding schemes is investigated with and without coherent integration. Some sample ionospheric experiments conducted with SDDI and interesting results are presented to highlight the potential and capabilities of the system.