Sodar echograms and correlation with microwave propagation characteristics in a hilly terrain

An attempt has been made to correlate sodar structures with line-of-sight microwave propagation characteristics. A vertically pointing monostatic sodar system was set up at SV University, Tirupati, India, in order to study the thermal structure of the lower atmosphere to a height range of 1 km. The principle of monostatic acoustic sounding systems is straight forward: a burst of sound wave is projected vertically into the atmosphere in a well-collimated beam using a suitable acoustic antenna and receive the backscattered signals from the thermal inhomogeneties of the atmosphere by the same antenna. The acoustic antenna used in the present system consists of a parabolic dish with the transducer at its focus. Results in the form of facsimile records were obtained displaying real time variations of thermal structure with height