Study of GPS ionospheric scintillations over equatorial anomaly station Bhopal during low solar activity period

Summary form only given. The paper deals with the statistical analysis of GPS L-band scintillations at the equatorial anomaly station Bhopal (geographic coordinates: 23.2°N, 77.6°E; geomagnetic coordinates 14.29°N, 151.12°E) for the low solar activity period. During the period of observation (January 2005 to December 2006), the variation of scintillations with local time, season and magnetic activity are reported. The occurrence of scintillation is found to be maximum in equinox months and minimum in summer months. We got different levels of scintillation in some months, but found that the weak scintillation ((0.2<S4≤0.4) is dominating throughout the period. The suppression or enhancement of pre-midnight scintillations during magnetic disturbed and quiet periods is found to be a seasonal and local time dependent factor. Pre-midnight and post midnight occurrence of scintillation is also reported in the paper. Pre-midnight scintillation was found to be maximum in equinox whereas it is minimum in winter months. Importance of the work lies in the evaluation of ionospheric irregularities at equatorial latitudes during the low solar activity period.