RESEARCH ON POLAR RADIO PROPAGATION BLACKOUTS

Abstract

A summary is presented of propagation information obtained on five point-to-point circuits during the period from March 1959 through June 1960. These five circuits (with terminals at Thule, Greenland; College, Alaska; Boston, Massachusetts; and Stanford, California) provided an excellent sampling of typical arctic long-distance communication paths---including paths within the auroral zone, outside the auroral zone, along the auroral zone, and across the auroral zone. Signal amplitude recordings at 12 and 18 Mc were made continuously over each of these circuits. The accumulated data are summarized graphically as the number of hours during each day when a useable signal was present on each circuit, along with a comparison with conventional predictions and other descriptive geophysical data. Over-all trends are discussed and compared with similar trends observed in other geophysical phenomena. Gross multipath observations at Stanford during April-June 1960 are also discussed. It is shown that, for communications purposes in the artic regions, each individual circuit has its own propagation peculiarities and relation to ionospheric disturbances. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 29, 1960
Accession Number
AD0251195

Entities

People

  • A.m. Peterson
  • R.d. Egan

Organizations

  • Stanford University

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Amplitude
  • California
  • Continents
  • Electromagnetic Wave Propagation
  • Geographic Regions
  • Geological Phenomena
  • Greenland
  • Ionospheric Disturbances
  • Massachusetts
  • North America
  • Observation
  • Sampling
  • Terminals
  • United States

Readers

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics.
  • Polar and Arctic Studies
  • Radio communications and signal processing.