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    | Titel | On the factors controlling occurrence of F-region coherent echoes |  
    | VerfasserIn | D. W. Danskin, A. V. Koustov, T. Ogawa, N. Nishitani, S. Nozawa, S. E. Milan, Mark Lester, D. Andre |  
    | Medientyp | Artikel 
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    | Sprache | Englisch 
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    | ISSN | 0992-7689 
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    | Digitales Dokument | URL |  
    | Erschienen | In: Annales Geophysicae ; 20, no. 9 ; Nr. 20, no. 9, S.1385-1397 |  
    | Datensatznummer | 250014460 
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    | Publikation (Nr.) |  copernicus.org/angeo-20-1385-2002.pdf |  
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        | Zusammenfassung |  
        | Several factors are known
 to control the HF echo occurrence rate, including electron density distribution
 in the ionosphere (affecting the propagation path of the radar wave), D-region
 radio wave absorption, and ionospheric irregularity intensity. In this study,
 we consider 4 days of CUTLASS Finland radar observations over an area where the
 EISCAT incoherent scatter radar has continuously monitored ionospheric
 parameters. We illustrate that for the event under consideration, the D-region
 absorption was not the major factor affecting the echo appearance. We show that
 the electron density distribution and the radar frequency selection were much
 more significant factors. The electron density magnitude affects the echo
 occurrence in two different ways. For small F-region densities, a minimum value
 of 1 × 1011 m-3 is required to have sufficient radio
 wave refraction so that the orthogonality (with the magnetic field lines)
 condition is met. For too large densities, radio wave strong
 "over-refraction" leads to the ionospheric echo disappearance. We
 estimate that the over-refraction is important for densities greater than 4 ×
 1011 m-3. We also investigated the backscatter power and
 the electric field magnitude relationship and found no obvious relationship
 contrary to the expectation that the gradient-drift plasma instability would
 lead to stronger irregularity intensity/echo power for larger electric fields. 
 Key words. Ionosphere (ionospheric
 irregularities; plasma waves and instabilities; auroral ionosphere)
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