Review of a Newly Developed Modular Ionosonde Operating in the Canadian High Arctic

The ionosphere is a dynamic medium, that interacts with propagating radio waves through a variety of physical mechanisms. The characteristics and extent of the ionosphere's impact varies with season, local time, altitude, geographic and geomagnetic location, as well as helio-, geomagnetic, and terrestrial activity. On the other hand, the operation and reliability of many strategically important communication, navigation, and radar systems are subject to ionospheric conditions. A thorough understanding of physical mechanisms, accurate observation, as well as modeling of the state of the ionosphere are required. The combination of these facilitates the mitigation of detrimental influences on the operation of complex systems, or allow to utilize certain states of the ionosphere to an operational benefit, e.g. for long-range communication, through now- and forecasting of space weather.