The INGV software for the automatic scaling of foF2 and MUF(3000)F2 from ionograms: A performance comparison with ARTIST 4.01 from Rome data

The performance of a computer program, called Autoscala, for the automatic scaling of foF2 and MUF(3000)F2 from ionograms has been extensively tested. Results of comparisons between automatically and manually scaled data are shown both for Autoscala and for ARTIST (release 4.01). Particular attention has been paid to the cases in which the ionograms have a truncated trace. The problem of the rejection of bad quality ionograms has been also considered. The analysis of data shows that the reliability of values automatically given as output by Autoscala is good. For the data set considered Autoscala seems to operate better than ARTIST.