RadioBanter - View Single Post

November 1st 04, 05:04 PM

(bpnjensen) wrote in message . com...

*The Question*: Am I wrong? Is it possible, or even common, for a
transmitted signal to travel to a receiver via some route other than a
Great Circle route? Is it possible for skip to veer around corners?
People talk about and use Gray Line conditions to their advantage, but
even *that* is a straight line / Great Circle pathway when one
exmaines what is happening - are there others that weave along warped
ways?

Thanks -
Bruce Jensen

As suggested or implied by both of the other posters here -

I looked up issues related to this on the internet, starting with a
Google search for skewed propagation.

After looking over some fascinating information, I think that the
answer to this question is, YES, 'skewing' of signals does occur due
to varying degrees of geomagnetic activity near the poles and,
especially, the locations and degrees of its gradient. At points of
high gradient, and usually well away from the most absorptive regions
where radio signal fear to tread, radio waves can actually take rather
sharp corners from standard great circle (GC) routes, and go from one
GC to another. These are most easily noted by amateur radio
operaters, who can keep careful track of the bearings of their antenna
arrays and the bearings fo their contacts. A careful and
well-informed SWL could do as much, although as most of probably use
nondirectional wires, or wires of unknown direction, it is probably
far less likely.

And, NO, grayline propagation *alone* does not follow warped or skewed
routes, following the clearly-defined GC grayline - but like any other
propagation, can be susceptible to skewing by the geomagnetic
gradient.

And, best of all, sometimes the combination occurs of skewing from one
GC route to another and especially when one route is the highly
effective grayline route, wonderfully unexpected reception (or
transmission, if you are an amateur) happens.

So, for the pointers, lads, thank you!

Bruce Jensen