Calculation of the statistical characteristics of backscattering signals in a randomly irregular ionospheric waveguide

The reciprocity theorem is used to obtain an expression for the correlation function of backscattering signals in a randomly irregular ionospheric waveguide. The directivity of the transmitting and receiving antennas, the parameters of the emitted signal and the receiving filter, the nonstationarity of the ionosphere, and radio-wave absorption are taken into account in the derivation of the expression. It is shown that the solution of the statistical problem is simplified substantially when the quasi-periodic characteristic of the waveguide ray trajectories is used. Calculations are presented for a model randomly irregular waveguide, and it is demonstrated that the proposed approach can be effectively used in the analysis of ionospheric sounding data.