[1] During experiments carried out in 2009-2011 the midlatitude ionosphere was modified by powerful HF pulses from the Sura heating facility located near Nizhny Novgorod (Russia) and operated by the Radio Physical Research Institute. GPS/GLONASS and Parus/Tsikada satellite radio transmissions responding to the heating-induced disturbances in electron density were analyzed. The variations in the total electron content (TEC), which are proportional to the reduced phase of navigational signals, were studied for various schemes of radiation of the heating wave. The variations in TEC (their amplitudes and temporal behavior) caused by HF heating are identified in several examples. The TEC spectra contain frequency components corresponding to the modulation periods of the heating wave. For the first time, the spatial structure of the wave disturbances generated in the ionosphere by high-power radio waves radiated by the Sura heating facility with a square wave modulation of the effective radiated power at a frequency lower than or of the order of the Brunt-Vaisala frequency of the neutral atmosphere is imaged using the method of low-orbital radio tomography and GPS/GLONASS data.Citation: Kunitsyn, V. E., E. S. Andreeva, V. L. Frolov, G. P. Komrakov, M. O. Nazarenko, and A. M. Padokhin (2012), Sounding of HF heating-induced artificial ionospheric disturbances by navigational satellite radio transmissions, Radio Sci., 47, RS0L15,

We present the results of the radiotomographic imaging of the artificial ionospheric disturbances obtained in the recent experiments on the modification of the midlatitude ionosphere by powerful HF radiowaves carried out at the Sura heater. Radio transmissions from low orbital PARUS beacon satellites recorded at the specially installed network of three receiving sites were used for the remote sensing of the heated ionosphere. We discuss the possibility to generate acoustic-gravity waves (AGWs) with special regimes of ionospheric heating (with the square wave modulation of the effective radiated power at the frequency lower than or of the order of the Brunt-Vaisala frequency of the neutral atmosphere at ionospheric heights during several hours) and present radiotomographic images of the spatial structure of the disturbed volume of the ionosphere corresponding to the directivity pattern of the heater, as well as the spatial structure of the wave-like disturbances, which are possibly heating-induced AGWs, diverging from the heated area of the ionosphere. We also studied the HF propagation of the pumping wave through the reconstructed disturbed ionosphere above the Sura heater, showing the presence of heater-created, field-aligned irregularities that effectively serve as "artificial radio windows."

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