THE AZIMUTHAL DISTRIBUTION OF ULTRA-HIGH FREQUENCY RADAR ECHOES FROM AURORA

Abstract

The distribution in range and azimuth of auroral echoes obtained with an ultra-high frequency radar at Prince Albert is examined. Such distributions may be controlled (i) by the effect of volume integration in the auroral configurations, (ii) by the geographical distribution of aurora, and (iii) by aspect sensitivity of the auroral scatterers. With the radar parameters chosen for this experiment, (i) can be neglected. Of the remaining two effects, (ii) appears to be more important in the period immediately before local midnight and (iii) in the period immediately following local midnight.