Consolidated Amateur Radio Signal Reports as Indicators of Intense Sporadic E Layers

Deacon, Chris; Mitchell, Cathryn N.; Watson, Robert J.

doi:10.3390/atmos13060906

“…Firstly, we will consider a pair of individual recordings made only ten minutes apart on 18 August 2018, during a long period of intense sporadic-E over western Europe. The development and movement of this particular event is described in one of our earlier articles, using crowdsourced amateur radio reception reports as indicators of the presence of intense sporadic-E [42]. Note that magnetic north was within 2° of geographical north in this part of Europe in 2018.…”

Section: Case Study -Slovenia and Hungary Beaconsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Deacon¹,

Mitchell²,

Watson³

et al. 2022

Preprint

0

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Mid-latitude sporadic-E (Es) is an intermittent phenomenon of the lower E region of the ionosphere. Es clouds are thin, transient, and patchy layers of intense ionization, with ionization densities which can be much higher than in the background ionosphere. Oblique reflection of radio signals in the very high frequency (VHF) range is regularly supported, but the mechanism for it has never been clearly established - specular reflection, scattering, and magnetoionic double refraction have all been suggested. This article proposes using the polarization behaviour of signals reflected from intense midlatitude sporadic-E clouds as an indicator of the true reflection mechanism. Results are presented from a measurement campaign in the summer of 2018, which gathered a large amount of data at a receiving station in the UK using 50 MHz amateur radio beacons as signal sources. In all cases the signals received were elliptically polarized, despite being transmitted with linear polarization; there were also indications that polarization behaviour varied systematically with the orientation of the path to the geomagnetic field. This represents, for all the examples recorded, clear evidence that signals were reflected from midlatitude Es by magnetoionic double refraction.

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“…Firstly, we will consider a pair of individual recordings made only ten minutes apart on 18 August 2018, during a long period of intense sporadic-E over western Europe. The development and movement of this particular event is described in one of our earlier articles, which uses crowdsourced amateur radio reception reports as indicators of the presence of intense sporadic-E [42]. Note that magnetic north was within 2 • of geographical north in this part of Europe in 2018.…”

Section: Case Study-slovenia and Hungary Beaconsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Black lines: great circle paths from beacons to receiver with midpoints indicated.Note that magnetic north is within 2° of geographical north in this part of Europe. Adapted from[42].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Deacon

¹

,

Mitchell

²

,

Watson

³

et al. 2022

Atmosphere

1

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mid-latitude sporadic-E (Es) is an intermittent phenomenon of the lower E region of the ionosphere. Es clouds are thin, transient, and patchy layers of intense ionization, with ionization densities which can be much higher than in the background ionosphere. Oblique reflection of radio signals in the very high frequency (VHF) range is regularly supported, but the mechanism for it has never been clearly established—specular reflection, scattering, and magnetoionic double refraction have all been suggested. This article proposes using the polarization behaviour of signals reflected from intense midlatitude sporadic-E clouds as an indicator of the true reflection mechanism. Results are presented from a measurement campaign in the summer of 2018, which gathered a large amount of data at a receiving station in the UK using 50 MHz amateur radio beacons as signal sources. In all cases the signals received were elliptically polarized, despite being transmitted with linear polarization; there were also indications that polarization behaviour varied systematically with the orientation of the path to the geomagnetic field. This represents, for all the examples recorded, clear evidence that signals were reflected from midlatitude Es by magnetoionic double refraction.

show abstract

“…Firstly, we will consider a pair of individual recordings made only ten minutes apart on 18 August 2018, during a long sporadic-E event over western Europe. The development and movement of this particular event is described in one of our earlier articles, using crowdsourced amateur radio reception reports as indicators of the presence of intense sporadic-E [42].…”

Section: Case Study -Slovenia and Hungary Beaconsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Black lines: great circle paths from beacons to receiver with midpoints indicated. Adapted from[42].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Deacon¹,

Mitchell²,

Watson³

et al. 2022

Preprint

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mid-latitude sporadic-E (Es) is an intermittent phenomenon of the lower E region of the ionosphere. Es clouds are thin, transient, and patchy layers of intense ionization, with ionization densities which can be much higher than in the background ionosphere. Oblique reflection of radio signals in the very high frequency (VHF) range is regularly supported, but the mechanism for it has never been clearly established - specular reflection, scattering, and magnetoionic double refraction have all been suggested. This article proposes using the polarization behaviour of signals reflected from intense midlatitude sporadic-E clouds as an indicator of the true reflection mechanism. Results are presented from a measurement campaign in the summer of 2018, which gathered a large amount of data at a receiving station in the UK using 50 MHz amateur radio beacons as signal sources. In all cases the signals received were elliptically polarized, despite being transmitted with linear polarization; there were also indications that polarization behaviour varied systematically with the orientation of the path to the geomagnetic field. This represents, for all the examples recorded, clear evidence that signals were reflected from midlatitude Es by magnetoionic double refraction.

show abstract

Consolidated Amateur Radio Signal Reports as Indicators of Intense Sporadic E Layers

Cited by 11 publications

References 39 publications

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

Evidence for the Magnetoionic Nature of Oblique VHF Reflections from Midlatitude Sporadic-E Layers

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