Satellite transmission studies of spread‐F produced by artificial heating of the ionosphere

Abstract

Experiments are described to study the morphology of artificial spread‐F (ASF) irregularities by measuring the scintillation of VHF and UHF signals transmitted through the disturbed region from geostationary and orbital satellites. The ASF irregularities are found to be approximately field aligned with correlation distances of about 100 m transverse to the field direction; a smaller structure less than 10 m is also seen. The fluctuations seem to be distributed through the entire F layer, and are less than one percent of the ambient electron density at most times.