Experimental study of the orientation of large-scale ionospheric inhomogeneities using a dense network of GPS stations

In this paper, the orientation of ionospheric inhomogeneities, observed over the territory of Japan on February 12, 2000, was studied. Based on the data of the dense regional GPS GEONET network, the angular characteristics of trans-ionospheric radio signal scattering on ionospheric inhomogeneities were analyzed. It is shown that in the presence of ionospheric inhomogeneities, failures of carrier phase tracking at an auxiliary frequency are observed when a radio signal propagates both parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field line. In the first case, the effect is much stronger. The number of the receivers, on which carrier phase tracking failures were observed at the auxiliary frequency, when a radio signal passed along the magnetic field line at the height of the ionospheric ionization maximum, reaches 6-7%, and even 30% for individual satellites. It is worth mentioning that the positioning accuracy became worse on most of the receivers during the observation of failures associated with the influence of magnetically oriented inhomogeneities.

A. B. Ishin, V. V. Demyanov, I. V. Zhivetyev. Experimental study of the orientation of large-scale ionospheric inhomogeneities using a dense network of GPS stations. // Solar-Terrestrial Physics, 2011, Issue 18. pp. 138-141.