Radio-acoustic sounding of the ionosphere

We present the results of first experiments on radio-acoustic sounding of ionosphere at the altitudes from 70 to 85 km. The sounding was performed in autumn 2006, using a horn acoustic emitter and a radar on the basis of the “Sura” facility. The emitter had an acoustic power of about 1 kW and operated in the chirp-modulation regime with frequency variation from 15.9 to 18.4 Hz. The radar transmitter operated in the pulse regime at a frequency of 9 MHz and had an average power of 30 kW. The power of the radio signal scattered from a sound wave in the ionosphere did not exceed 10 −16 W, and the measured values of the temperature in the scattering region ranged from 190 to 225 K.