Construction of an ionosonde station in Xiamen and preliminary observations
厦门电离层垂测站建设及初步结果

A new ionosonde station is constructed in Xiamen and preliminary observation are briefly introduced. At this station the Canada Advanced Digitial Ionosonde (CADI) is selected as the main equipment, and a set of folded dipole antennas and a pairs folded dipole are used as transmit and received antennas, respectively. With the internet and a special net system of CMA, the observed data is transfered to the National Center for Spaceweather in Beijing very quickly and the equipment is able to be controlled far away. By using observed data at this station during August, 2008, we found that the foF2 has a pronounced daily variation, and it usually maximizes at 14~16LT with an amplitude of 5~15MHz and minimizes at 4~6LT with an amplitude of 4 MHz. The IRI2007 seems to be able to reproduce the observed medium foF2, but it fails to forecast the daily foF2 due to the day to day variability of ionosphere in Xiamen.