Pulse-level interference and meteor processing of Arecibo ISR data

We introduce a simple but effective order statistics filter for the pulse-level interference and meteor processing of Arecibo ionosphere observation data. Using this filter and the techniques introduced by Wen et al. [2005. Adaptive filtering for the separation of incoherent scatter and meteor signals for Arecibo Observation Data. Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 67, 1190–1195] we effectively remove/separate the unwanted signals, such as impulsive interference and meteor returns, encountered during incoherent scatter radar (ISR) observations of the ionosphere. We further analyze the separated signals to obtain uniquely “cleaned” incoherent scatter power data and scientifically valuable meteor parameters. We present the processed incoherent scatter results from 22/23 March 2004 observations and the altitude and the speed distributions of the separated meteor signals. The nighttime photochemical E-region is clearly revealed for the first time as a result of meteor and interference removal. Additionally, these results reveal the first major bias in large aperture radar meteor headecho results—the meteor speed distribution is flattened by the absence of at least 50% of the events with duration less than 10 ms revealed by meteor-specific observations. Meteor data derived from standard incoherent scatter data always displays this bias.