On the calculation of the departures of radio wave bending from normal

Abstract

The calculation of non normal tropospheric bending of radio waves is t r eatcd in terms of a reduced-to-sea-level value of the refracti ve ind ex. Tills method emphasizes d epartures of bending from t he ave rage bending for t he United States and cons ists of visualizing ray bending as consistin g of t wo p ar ts ; an" average" component and a" d eparture-from-average" compon ent . The "average" compon en t comprises most of the bending and is obtain ed accurately from refraction tabul ations while t he component du e to d ep artures is easil y obtaill ed by graphical means .

URSI National Committee Report, XIV General Assembly, Tokyo, September 1963: Commission 2. Tropospheric Radio Propagation (7 Sections)

“…Tracking of satellites with narrow-beam antenna" may therefore be accomplished using methods which rely on predicted orbi tal elem en ts, provided corrections that take refractiYe index profile characteristics in to account are made for low angles of eleyation. Deyiation in the angle of arrival of the radio waves from the average and predicted values has also been studied [Bean, Horn, and Riggs, 1960;Bean and Dutton , 1960 ; …”