TUB software tools for monitoring ionospheric irregularities in a single station mode and first results

Encouraged by ionospheric influences on accuracy of GNSS positioning we updated our software for monitoring of ionospheric irregularities. An update of our receiver independent binary exchange data format, T-BinEx, was required as well in order to integrate new types of observations. We are able to monitor continuously ionospheric amplitude scintillation index (S4) and the Rate of change of the Total Electron Content (TEC) index (RoT) in near real time (delay about 20min). Our software is able to calculate the S4 index for any receiver providing I and Q correlation values. For testing and validating of the software a couple of experiments were designed and conducted and they are here described. The developed software was also validated by a commercially available software from Septentrio. The paper presents results from a collocated experiment conducted with two different receivers, one from Septentrio PolaRxS and another one from Javad receiver. Both were connected to the same antenna. The comparison of S4 values derived from Javad amplitudes and from Septentrio's correlations were compared. Some small bias between both time series can be seen and requires further investigation. It could be caused by hardware delays (for example, influence of the antenna splitter). Stability of the S4 index with respect to the length of the time span used for its calculation (1, 3, 10, 30 and 60 sec) was investigated as well and some results are presented. Some older receivers provided in the past only I component instead of I and Q. We were wonder if such data can be used for analysis of scintillations. The S4 results calculated from I component only and from both I and Q components were compared.