Software-defined radio technology in the problem concerning with the successive sounding of HF ionospheric communication channels

Abstract

The problem concerning new software-defined radio technology is investigated as applied to the successive sounding of HF ionospheric communication radio channels. The algorithm for quadrature processing of chirp signals subjected to elementwise compression in the frequency domain is developed. It is established that a channel scattering function and a delay power profile are related to a compressed-signal spectrum and their basic parameters. Data on the key characteristic of HF communications modems are presented. The efficiencies of different modems are estimated using the experimental data on channel parameters. It is demonstrated that the aforementioned technology can be used to estimate not only HF communication channel parameters from the pass band of a radio line but also select the optimal one and, furthermore, makes it possible to combine communications and radio sounding systems in the single device.