One of possibilities to use TEC-GPS data for HF links

Many applications of high frequency (HF) propagation via the ionosphere (e.g., bearing-fingers, single station location, utilization of oblique ionograms and so on) demand a determination of distance from radio wave transmitters to receivers. It is shown that main errors of the distance determination are introduced by errors of angle measurements and errors of model description of propagation conditions. Since it is unable essentially to lower the first type of errors in real conditions the main attention must be paid to the increase of the model ionospheric description precision. For this purpose the correction of the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model by total electron content TEC-GPS data is used. Results of maximum usable frequency MUF and ground range D determination are compared with results of the IRI model adaptation by means of vertical sounding (VS) data.