RESEARCH ON POLAR RADIO PROPAGATION BLACKOUTS

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: EGAN, R.D., PETERSON, A.M.
Other Authors: STANFORD UNIV CA STANFORD ELECTRONICS LABS
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: 1960
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD0251195
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0251195
Description
Summary: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)