Since modern digital ionosondes and minicomputers are now generally accessible there is no justification any more for using inversion schemes in which the influence of the magnetic field is ignored or a monotonous profile is assumed so that the regular presence of valleys is neglected. Therefore inversion schemes like POLAN and ARTIST should at least be applied. We propose a new global and analytical representation of the F2-layer profiles which is found to be helpful for specific ionospheric situations.