Ionospheric structure from oblique‐backscatter soundings

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Abstract
Oblique ionograms are made monostatically by using an HF sounder to record the delay times of echoes from known ground targets as a function of operating frequency. Cooperative sources, such as repeaters, or distinctive terrain features, such as cities, serve effectively as known ground targets. An analytic method is developed to transform oblique‐backscatter ionograms into the h'‐f curves recorded by conventional ionosondes at vertical incidence, from which ionospheric electron‐density profiles can be derived. The validity of the transformation technique is demonstrated by comparing h'‐f data recorded simultaneously at oblique incidence and at vertical incidence near the midpoint of the oblique path.