ITEMS

modern scholarly publishers in the finest tradition

Journals

	Search

Telecommunications and Radio Engineering

ISSN for PRINT: 0040-2508

Institutional price:	$4518.00
Issues per year:	20

Best Paper Award Selection - Editorial Board Site

2008, Volume67

93 pages

DOI: 10.1615/TelecomRadEng.v67.i5

Issue price - $271.00

Impact of the Ionosphere Day-Night Non-Uniformity on Amplitude of ELF Radio Signal

A. P. Nickolaenko
A. Usikov Institute of Radio Physics and Electronics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 12, Academician Proskura St., Kharkov 61085, Ukraine

ABSTRACT

Diurnal amplitude variations are presented of the man-made ELF radio signal recorded at the “Bellinshausen” Antarctic station. The propagation path was 16 Mm long. Average level of the field corresponds to the literature data. Diurnal amplitude variations arise from the day-night asymmetry of the Earth-ionosphere waveguide. The ambient day level is by 5 − 6 dB lower than that of nocturnal conditions (vertical electric field), and it is by 4 − 5 dB lower in the horizontal magnetic field. Model fields were computed in the uniform spherical Earth − ionosphere cavity with the 'whole day' or 'whole night' ionospheres. It is shown that numerical data based on the literature propagation model contradict the observations. Discrepancy arises from inexact phase velocity of the ELF radio wave: the latter governs the position of interference maxima and minima. Model data match the experiment after phase velocity is corrected by ∼10%. Since the 'whole day' and the 'whole night' ionosphere models do not account for the wave diffraction at the day − night interface, an extended modeling is desirable.