PLANS FOR A NEW RIO-IMAGER EXPERIMENT IN NORTHERN SCANDINAVIA

To observe the spatial variations and dynamics of charged particle pre cipitation in the high latitude ionosphere, a riometer experiment is p lanned, which from the ground will image the precipitation regions ove r an area of 300 x 300 km with a spatial resolution of 6 km in the zen ith, increasing to 12 km at 60 degrees zenith angle. The time resoluti on is one second. The spatial resolution represents a considerable imp rovement over existing imaging systems. The experiment employs a Mill' s Cross technique not used before in riometer work: two 32 element row s of antennas form the antenna array, two 32 element Butler Matrices a chieve directionality, and cross-correlation yield the directional int ensities. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.