2. INAG MEETING, 26 AUGUST 1993, URSI GENERAL ASSEMBLY KYOTO, Japan

2.1. Attendance:

Duncan Baker (South Africa)

L.W. Barclay (UK)

Klaus Bibl (USA)

G. Bowman (AUS)

P.A. Bradley (UK) Meeting Secretary

Tamara Gulyaeva (Russia)

Rudi Hanbaba (France)

R. Hunsucker (USA);

Terry Kelly (AUS)

Ken Lynn (AUS)

K. Marubashi (Japan)

Horacio C. Neto (Portugal)

Allan Poole (South Africa)

Sergei Pulinets (Russia)

Bodo Reinisch (USA)

Werner Singer (Germany)

A.J. Smith (UK)

John Titheridge (NZ)

N. Wakai (Japan)

Bruce Ward (AUS)

A.W. Wernick (Comm. G. Chair)

Matthew Wild (UK) WDC-C1

P. Wilkinson (AUS) Chair

The meeting commenced at 1400 by remembering departed members: Natiliya Benkova, Clarrie McCue, Sergei Chavadarov and Jurgen Buchau.

The meeting endorsed Phil Wilkinson as Chair and Ray Conkright as Secretary for a further three years. This was recommended and accepted by Commission G.

2.2. Terms of Reference:

Two topics raised by members: oblique ionograms and topside sounding. To incorporate either of these topics into INAG would involve changing the terms of reference slightly. Before doing this, broad interest in them must be established.

2.2.1. Oblique incidence ionograms.

This topic has been raised by several members over the last three years. A task group will report back on possible action INAG should take. Klaus Bibl, Ken Lynn, Peter Bradley and Bruce Ward form the nucleus of this group and any INAG members who are interested in offering comments should contact the Chair of INAG (PJW). Peter Bradley later pointed out there was a similar group in IIWG headed by himself. In view of this, Peter will lead this group and it will either remain in IIWG or become incorporated into INAG depending on outputs.

2.2.2. Topside Sounding

Sergei Pulinets presented Professor Danilkin's proposal to establish a topside sounding community. The original proposal was to form a new working group within the Commission to promote a topside sounding project based on a new Russian topside sounder. However, the proposal was judged likely to have more success if it was first developed within either working group (INAG) or (IIWG). In his presentation, Pulinets proposed that interested groups could build topside ground stations, using a design supplied by Izmiran for ~$1,000. The station could interrogate the proposed Russian topside sounders. The first two topside sounders could not have optimum orbits, but it would establish the principle and, presumably, prepare the way for a larger effort.

Wernik pointed out that the Canadians have a substantial number of tapes (hundreds) of Isis data that have never been processed. He wondered if somebody would like to process this data and how a new sounding program would overcome the substantial cost problems that were encountered in earlier topside programs. Bibl pointed out that a new program would enhance co-operative experiments more effectively than retrospective studies could.

While those present agreed the proposal had merit, no individual support was proposed.

2.3. Membership and email

A complete membership list was circulated to check current names and addresses. Members were asked to add email addresses and also were encouraged to become familiar with email if it was available locally to them. While email cannot be the sole means for communication, it would make the Chair's task easier if those who are able to use it, do so.

2.4. State of Network

2.4.1. Australia

IPS, with the assistance of University of Papua-New Guinea, is working towards re-opening Port Moresby by the end of 1993. (Note added October 1993: severe security problems at Pt. Moresby has now delayed the reopening of the ionosonde station there. Currently, we are investigating alternative sites and considering the costs that would be involved to reach a sufficiently high level of security at the current site to make the operation there viable.)

The 4B ionosonde at Casey has been replaced by a Portable Digisonder (DPS) operated by ANARE.

2.4.2. United Kingdom

Andrew Smith reiterated the earlier announcement in INAG that Argentine Islands would close although, if it is feasible, a low power system operating on long storage batteries and / or solar power would replace the current sounder. Matthew Wild announced that a new sounder would be opened at RAL, 40km from Slough, to replace the current station at Slough. Matthew also pointed out that Slough has all the original records for Slough in archives at WDC-C1.

2.4.3. Poland

Poland will be setting up an ionosonde in Spitzenbergen. It will be used during the summer and will record Doppler on 32 frequencies.

2.4.4. South Africa.

Allon Poole reported that, due to a lack of funds, the ionosonde was not placed at Gough Island. Duncan Baker later reminded people that Johannesburg had stopped producing data, as there were now no funds to continue operation of the stations.

2.4.5. KEL Aerospace

Terry Kelly announced that KEL will discontinue production of the IPS-42 ionosonde in favour of the IPS-71 described in INAG-59. They will continue to support IPS-42 Ionosondes already in operation. Kelly emphasised the significant advantages of real time data availability that the IPS-71 offers.

The Chair, while agreeing that modern digital ionosondes are a valuable step forward, reminded the meeting that the prime objective of INAG is to support the collection and archiving of a consistent and homogeneous data set from ionosondes. While real time data may help in maintaining future ionosonde networks, it is subordinate to the main interest of INAG.

2.5. INAG Session G6

The meeting was reminded of this meeting and that papers could be published in a UAG report to appear after the meeting. A comment on this meeting appeared on p3 of this Bulletin.

2.5.1. Proposed INAG Session for 1996 URSI General Assembly.

The Chair proposed that INAG should be responsible for a session titled "Computer Aided Processing of Ionograms and Ionosonde Records" at the URSI General Assembly, in Lille in 1996. The proposed objective of the session would be to obtain papers on the various automatic scaling systems now available for processing ionograms and to attract papers describing the systems, discuss errors encountered in automatic scaling as well as consider the value of the data. Those present were interested in the proposal and suggested it should also include oblique sounding. This proposed session will be put forward for consideration by URSI. This was accepted by URSI and a notice for the meeting appears elsewhere in the Bulletin.

2.6. Baseline Stations

The Chair reminded the meeting about Baseline Stations and pointed out that there had been few comments on this topic. Oleson had suggested all stations had some special value and the Chair suggested people should identify the special value of their stations.

2.7. Other Business

Matthew Wild requested that any groups whose stations are contributing to the IF2 and the IG ionospheric indices, and who are now not able to supply regular data, could they advise him of their status so he can seek alternates.

Matthew also requested that any group that is currently sending paper print outs of scaled data to WDCs also send a disk copy, as digital data is significantly more valuable to the data center.

The meeting closed at 1530.