East Siberian Center for the Earth's Ionosphere Research (SDC ESCEIR)

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Incoherent scatter ionosphere diagnostics subdivision

The Development of the Incoherent scatter radar experimental base

Since the Irkutsk IS radar is based on station "Dnepr", which was not intended for IS measurements, we made a serios effort to modernize this station in order to carry out ionospheric observations.

Four main directions of the development of the radar experimental base:

• modernization of the radar receiving system;
• development of primary processing and measurement control methods;
• development of methods for ionospheric parameters determining;
• installation of another kind of equipment in order to improve the data quality.

These directions cannot be completely separated from each other since they are closely interrelated and must be pursued in parallel.

Let us give an example: the modernization of the station "Dnepr" amplifiers and the replacement of standart receivers allowed us in 1998 to reduce significanty the noise temperature of the receiving channel and to improve the analysis of the oxygen plasma spectrum. However, the increase of solar activity increasing in 1999-2000 compels us to carry out measurements of the hydrogen line and hence the receivers' parameters ceased to satisfy the needed requirements. Moreover, a series of problems compels us to carry out correlation measurements with a composite impulse, thus necessitating of modernizing the receiving system and primary and the post processing software.