Characterization of ionospheric scintillation at a geomagnetic equatorial region station

Abstract In this study, we analyzed ionospheric scintillation at Bahir Dar station, Ethiopia (11.6°N, 37.38°E) using GPS-SCINDA data between August 2010 and July 2011. We found that small scale variation in TEC caused high ionospheric scintillation, rather than large scale variation. We studied the daily and monthly variations in the scintillation index S 4 during this year, which showed that scintillation was a post-sunset phenomenon on equinoctial days, with high activity during the March equinox. The scintillation activity observed on solstice days was relatively low and almost constant throughout the day with low post-sunset activity levels. Our analysis of the seasonal and annual scintillation characteristics showed that intense activity occurred in March and April. We also studied the dependence of the scintillation index on the satellite elevation angle and found that scintillation was high for low angles but low for high elevation angles.

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