An empirical model of the F1 intermediate layer true-height characteristics

By using data from a low middle latitude station (San Juan: 31.5°S; 68.5°W) it is shown that the electron density and true height of the inflection point that characterizes, in most of the cases, the ionospheric layer F1 are linearly correlatedto fF1 and h′F2. It is shown that fF1 is also correlated to the electron density at fixed heights around 170 km. Comparison is made between the IRI-79 model and the point defined using fF1 with the experimental true height profiles for medium and high solar activity and different seasons. Those points are a better estimate of the observed intermediate region over San Juan. An extension of the analysis using data from Tucumán (26.9°S; 65.4°W) suggests that the obtained results could be generalized at least for low latitude conditions.