The Long- and Short-Term Ionospheric Forecast Service for the Shortwave Propagation

The report describes the shortwave propagation forecast service developed in the Institute of Applied Geophysics. The global network of the ionospheric stations is used as the source of the input data. A software, based on the ionospheric model SIMP-2, assimilates the data and calculates the most important ionospheric parameters and vertical electron concentration profiles over any geographic point. In addition to this, there is a possibility to make short-term forecasts (up to 24 hours) of the critical F2-layer frequency based on local ionospheric-station models, as well as long-term forecasts of the ionospheric characteristics, with the help of a dynamic empirical model. The results are distributed in a standard format via the Internet by means of the HTTP protocol. As an example application, a shortwave propagation software is discussed.