Bistatic HF diagnostics of TIDs over the Antarctic Peninsula

Results of HF diagnostics of traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) over the Antarctic Peninsula are presented that have been obtained in the frequency-and-angular sounding technique developed at the Institute of Radio Astronomy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (Kharkov, Ukraine). A specially designed HF transmitter was deployed at the Polish Antarctic station Henryk Arctowski to radiate probe signals. Variations in trajectory parameters (angles of arrival and Doppler frequency shifts) of the probe signals used for recovering TID characteristics were recorded at the Ukrainian Antarctic station Akademik Vernadsky with a compact-size three-channel coherent receiver based on the Doppler interferometry technique. The propagation path length was approximately 440 km. Round-the-clock measurements were performed between 31 January and 16 March, 2004 at frequencies 5 to 7 MHz, depending on the ionospheric conditions. The total time of observations was about 1000 h. Results of preliminary processing of the measured data are reported. Characteristic parameters of the disturbances are presented and possible sources of their generation are discussed.