Observations of magnetic aspect effects in auroral radar backscatter

A series of experiments have been performed to investigate VHF auroral backscatter. The equipment is basically a bistatic CW radar using narrow beam antennas. One objective has been to investigate the dependence of backscatter power and spectral characteristics on aspect angle: the angle between the line of sight and the local magnetic field in the scattering region. The results indicate that the effects of aspect angle are much more complex than earlier measurements have indicated.