Topband: Re: 160 Propagation and weather

[Robert Brown]

Friends in Radio Land -
 
     With regard to low-band propagation and weather being
related, it is fairly obvious from some basic facts:
 
1) The ionosphere floats or is suspended in the atmosphere, with
electrons and positive ions outnumbered by neutral constituents by
a million to one, or more.
 
2) Positive ions in the ionosphere result from photo-ionization
of neutral atmospheric constituents.  Having the same mass as the
neutrals and colliding with them at a high rate (up in the MHz
range), they are carried along by the motions of the neutrals, and
electrons follow by Coulomb attraction to maintain charge
neutrality.
 
3) For propagation purposes, meteorological variations will have
to be added to the layer distributions of average electron density
profiles used by ionospheric models.  That should be an important
matter in the future but requires wind measurements at altitudes
currently not available on a routine basis.
 
4) Thus, the formation of a lightly ionized ionosphere from the
atmosphere point directly to a connection between atmospheric motions  
associated with the weather and signal propagation by the ionosphere.
 
Famous last words: "It is left to the student to work out the
details and solve the problem."
 
73,
 
Bob, NM7M