The Effects of Ionospheric Change on High Frequency Radar Observations

Résumé du livre

Consideration of simple models suggests that Doppler shifts of backscattered high-frequency radio waves due to ionospheric change will be very large, many times greater than the Doppler shifts produced by the same inospheric change over a path between fixed transmitter and receiver. Such large Doppler shifts—not associated with an actual moving target—can seriously limit the dependability of target detection by HF radar. The Doppler shifts produced by moving ionospheric perturbations (“under-dense” irregularities), however, will be small and this kind of disturbance does not pose a serious problem. Both of these points require further study based on data from an expanded observation program.