Ring of Station Method in Research of Cosmic Ray Variations: 1. General Description

For over 60 years, neutron monitors have remained the main standard, stable instrument for the measurement of cosmic rays with energies from 400 MeV to hundreds of GeV. In order to obtain sufficiently complete information about the distribution of cosmic rays outside the magnetosphere, it is necessary to have a network of detectors that are fairly evenly spaced around the globe. One of the most useful methods to obtain the properties of the angular distribution of cosmic rays without decomposition into harmonics is the ring of station method. It allows one to obtain the instantaneous (more precisely, hourly) longitudinal distribution of the intensity of cosmic rays without its modeling. The main goal of this work is to expand the use of the ring of station method, a convenient and useful method for the study of cosmic ray variations.