A new direction finding technique for auroral VLF hiss based on the measurement of time differences of arrival at three spaced observing points

Abstract

A newly developed direction finding (DF) technique for auroral hiss based on the measurement of time differences of wave arrival was carried out in 1978 at Syowa Station (geomag. lat. -70.4°), Antarctica and its two slave unmanned observing points located at about 20 km distances from Syowa. The auroral hiss signals (0.3–100 kHz) received at the two spaced points were transmitted to Syowa by a wide-band telemeter of 2 GHz. The arrival time difference of auroral hiss between Syowa and each spaced point was automatically determined by cross-correlating the waveforms of the received signals, and then the incident and azimuthal angles were measured with an accuracy of about 10°. It has been found that the new DF technique can determine localized exit regions at the ionospheric level which show rapid temporal movements. A comparison of the DF results with ground-based auroral data has shown that impulsive type auroral hiss with a wide-band frequency range has not emerged from the whole region of a bright aurora but from some localized regions of bright electron auroras at the ionospheric level, and that the arrival directions of auroral hiss change rapidly in accordance with the auroral movements.