VLF Nighttime Data Analysis

• Other Authors: TELECOMMUNICATION SCIENCE ASSOCIATES INC SAN DIEGO CA
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1991
• Subjects: Plasma Physics and Magnetohydrodynamics; Radiofrequency Wave Propagation; *DATA PROCESSING; *NIGHT; *OCEAN ENVIRONMENTS; COMPUTER PROGRAMS; DATA BASES; FREQUENCY; IONOSPHERE; PROPAGATION; POSITION(LOCATION); SHIPS; PREDICTIONS; NAVY; TIME; OCEANS; RANGE(DISTANCE); MERCHANT VESSELS; NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN; PLOTTING; VERY LOW FREQUENCY; *IONOSPHERIC PROPAGATION; *ELECTRON DENSITY; LOW FREQUENCY; COLLISION FREQUENCY; DATA ANALYSIS; NIGHTTIME; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/ADA234006; http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA234006

This paper documents a VLF/LF Data Analysis task by the Naval Ocean Systems Center to improve the modeling of the nighttime ionosphere when making propagation predictions with the LWPC computer program. The task utilizes an extensive database of VLF measured data recorded during the 1985-1986 trips of the merchant ship GTS Callaghan in the North Atlantic area. By constraining the Callaghan data to those periods when both the ship and the distant transmitters were in time zones consistent with all-nighttime propagation, and by eliminating data from trips outside the principal area of interest, an aggregated set of recorded data was assembled for each frequency of concern. Four frequencies were examined: 16.0, 19.0, 21.4 and 24.0 kHz. Recorded data sets were graphed as signal vs. distance plots, computing distance from the transmitter for each ship's location. The LWPC program was then utilized to compute signal vs. distance along a typical path in the same ocean area, and the predicted and recorded data were compared. By changing the LWPC parameters different propagation predictions were compared with the recorded data until a best fit was obtained.