A fully automated daily short-term ionospheric forecasting service

A method of producing short-term HF forecasts has been fully automated and the GEC-Marconi Research Centre (MRC) now issues daily reports of ionospheric propagation conditions. Manual methods developed for forecasting have been converted into computer algorithms and implemented on microcomputers. The most innovative improvement is the installation of a bulletin board which can be dialled-up over the telephone network and provides, in addition to the forecast, up-to-date solar, and magnetic indices, and ionospheric F2-layer critical frequency sounding data from five European locations. In this paper the authors present: the range of user requirements, information used by MRC in compiling each forecast, details of the forecast message and its methods of distribution. Finally the future objectives of the service are described together with some of the difficulties anticipated