Characteristics of magnetospheric ducts observed by the Alouette 2 topside sounder

Abstract

The Alouette 2 topside sounder data have been used extensively to study the field-aligned propagation of HF radio waves. We present information about the physical characteristics of magnetospheric ducts with reference to their scale sizes and peak fractional deviations of electron density. The results are in general agreement with previously published results of Muldrew (1963) with Alouette 1 data and Loftus et al. (1966) with Explorer 20 data. In our study of the conjugate ducting phenomenon we analyzed more than 400,000 Alouette 2 ionograms. A select sample of data (2100 ionograms) is used to decipher the duct characteristics.