ROSE: a high performance oblique ionosonde providing new opportunities for ionospheric research

A high quality high frequency (HF) oblique ionosonde has been developed for use in propagation research and associated studies of the ionosphere. The ionosonde is known as ROSE (radio oblique sounding equipment) and requires the connection of a specially designed enhancement to a commercially available chirp sounder receiver (RCS-5) manufactured by the BR Corporation in the U.S.A. Two important features are brought about by the addition of this enhancement. Firstly, an increase in the resolution of an ionogram by a factor of approximatety three. This allows the fine structure in the ionospheric returns to be detected. Secondly, colour coding of the ionogram according to the amplitude of the received signal. Detailed mode amplitude information and comparisons of the relative strengths of propagating modes can be achieved through this. Additional features which are provided include display handling, data storage and off-line analytical facilities. This paper describes the system architecture of ROSE, its main features and its application to ionospheric research.