Automatic scaling of critical frequency foF2 from ionograms recorded at Sao José dos Campos, Brazil: a comparison between Autoscala and UDIDA tools

Abstract

This paper considers a dataset of ionograms recorded by the CADI ionosonde installed at Sao José dos Campos (SJC; 23.2°S, 45.9°W, magnetic latitude 14.1°S), Brazil, to compare two autoscaling systems: Autoscala, developed by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, and the UDIDA-scaling, developed by the Universidade do Vale do Paraı´ba. The analysis, focused on the critical frequency of the F2 layer, foF2, shows that the two systems work differently. The UDIDA-scaling gives always a value of foF2 as output, regardless of the presence of the ionogram trace and its definition, while Autoscala tends to reject ionograms for which the digital information is considered insufficient. As a consequence, the UDIDA-scaling can autoscale more foF2 values than Autoscala, but Autoscala can discard a larger number of ionograms for which the trace is unidentifiable. Discussions are made on the accuracy of the foF2 values given as output, as well as on the main shortcomings characterizing the two systems.