Data description and quality assessment of ionospheric electron density profiles for ARPA modeling project

This report presents a description of the automated method used to produce electron density (N (h)) profiles from ionograms recorded on 35mm film and an assessment of the resulting data base. A large data base of about 30,000 profiles was required for an ionospheric modeling project. This motivated a search for an automated method of producing profiles. The automated method used is fully described, the resulting data are given a quality grade, and the noon and midnight profiles are presented. Selected portions of this data base are compared with profiles produced by the standard profiling method in use by the Environmental Data Service at Boulder, Colorado.