HF Propagation Analysis: Puerto Rico Airborne Ionospheric Observatory Flights in Support of the Over-the-Horizon Radar System.

摘要

Flights in the coverage area of Segment 3 of the East Coast OTH-B Radar to calibrate a radar target emulator were used to study propagation conditions over long paths (> 3000 km) off the East Coast of the U.S. Analysis of MOF data, derived from oblique propagation ionograms, and MUF data derived for respective distances from the onboard ionosonde data indicate substantial discrepancies. This is, in view of the long path, not surprising. MOF changes were out of phase with path length changes. The analysis of Martyn's Theorem shows, that for the long propagation path, the contribution of MUF variation from the time dependence of foF2 was 22 times greater than the range contribution, and of the opposite sign, under the conditions observed during the measurement. (rh)