• SAO Explorer is the flagship software tool for working with GIRO ionograms
• Download and user-guide link: https://ulcar.uml.edu/SAO-X/SAO-X.html
• SAO-X has capability of accessing ionograms and ionogram-derived data from 60+ locations in the Lowell DIDBase (via TCP/IP port 3050)

• DIDBase is Digital Ionogram DataBase
• 14+ million ionogram images
• 15+ million ionogram-derived records
• Web Portal access to ionogram images: http://ulcar.uml.edu/DIDBase/

• Interactive ionogram scaling environment
• Mouse-driven leading edge highlighter
• ARTIST-5 autoscaling algorithm to reduce overall manual effort
• Profile inversion algorithm NHPC
• Visualization controls, including content selectors, data labels, and detail-on-demand context window

DIDB Fast Characteristics

• Time series of common ionospheric characteristics
• IRI-2001 model values available for comparisons
• Plain text export for external data analysis

Profilogram

• Time history of the vertical profile of electron density
• X axis is time, Y axis is altitude, and color is mapped to plasma density
• Example from Millstone HIll observatory illustrates ionospheric response to a strong interplanetary shock event