Metrewavelength fine structure in 30 extragalactic radio sources with sizes of a few arcsec

We report interplanetary scintillation (IPS) observations at 327 MHz of an unbiased sample of 30 extragalactic radio sources having overall size between 1 and 4 arcsec, and flux densities greater than 1 Jy at 327 MHz. From VLBI observations, these sources have been reported to contain compact components of sizes <~ 0.02 arcsec contributing on an average about 25% of the total emission at 5 GHz. The IPS observations show that about 45% of the total emission at 327 MHz arises from structures of sizes between 0.05 & 0.5 arcsec (corresponding typically to 0.5 to 5 kpc). A comparison of the VLBI and IPS results indicates that the VLBI & IPS components probably refer to the same physical features in these sources; and that these features are probably either hotspots or steep-spectrum kiloparsec cores for about 2/3rds of the sources and may be flat-spectrum compact components for the rest.