Speakers
Description
IonoNet is a project of a cooperative radar network of multistatic Pseudo Random Code (PRC) ionosondes for oblique ionospheric soundings placed in different points of the European territories; in this way, it will be possible to compare the ionospheric characteristics relative to points separated by about a few hundred to thousands of kilometres. The project activities concern the design, construction, and installation of PRC ionosondes for oblique soundings. The oblique PRC ionosondes are composed of two parts, a transmitting and a receiving one, placed in various places.
The project will aim to install three transmitting ionosondes located in the north (La Spezia), center (Montelibretti (Rome) and south (Gibilmanna) of Italy and five receiving ionosondes in Castello Tesino (TN), Rocca di Papa (RM), Preturo (AQ), Duronia (CB) and Lampedusa (AG) in several parts of Italy. The other five receiving stations will be installed in several countries of Europe, more precisely in France at Chambon La Forêt, in Cyprus at Nicosia, in Finland at Helsinki, in Spain at Jaèn and in Romania at Covasna, hosted by their national research institutions.
The oblique ionosondes have been developed and built at INGV laboratories and will be complemented by communication and data analysis systems, including transforming oblique ionograms into vertical ones, to enable better comparison with the ionograms from the other observatories. Autoscala software will be used for the real-time generation of electron density profiles and calculating all propagation parameters; based on the Autoscala output, ionospheric warnings will be generated in case of disturbed conditions. The soundings will allow monitoring the ionosphere over the European region during quiet and disturbed geomagnetic conditions and to investigate possible ionosphere-lithosphere coupling phenomena.
