Richard Clark wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jul 2006 18:32:46 -0400, jawod wrote:

This I don't understand. To me, refraction versus reflection IS the
issue. In optics, Brewster's angle is used. I still don't quite
understand thte PseudoBrewster's Angle...it seems to have a different
definition (at least in the ARRL book).


Hi John,

Perhaps you should offer that definition as its application seems to
be quite rare, and paired with some obscurity to the world of
sub-atomic dispersion.

I looked in some of my dusty old Optics texts to find Brewster: has
more to do with polarization. Brewster's angle is the incident angle of
light at which the reflected beam is the most completely polarized.

My bad.

I was thinking of the critical angle above which the light is reflected
back from the media interface and below which the light is refracted
through the "2nd" medium.

PseudoBrewster's Angle (PBA) is the "angle at which the reflected wave
is 90 degrees out of phase with respect to the direct wave" (p. 3-13
ARRL Antenna Book).

I see now that Both Brewster and PBA have to do with polarization.


I guess I was trying to get at how much ham radio is propagated into
space. Certainly SOME does.


SOME about covers it (you want that specified in dB?). I suppose by
your other references to SETI you are wondering about the chances of a
QSO in the same frequency from the other side of that ionospheric
curtain.

Not really looking for a QSO. Just trying to imagine SWL from a
different vantage point, I guess.

Given the odds, one frequency is as good as the next....


How does this compare to that amount propagated into space by Broadcast?


There you have to consider the magnitude of flux, continuously, over
the years. If the broadcasting is from Fox news (or any Murdoch
source for that matter), it will be indistinguishable from pinko
noise.

Short entries in some entity's log: "No intelligent life found" and "why
am I suddenly hungry?".

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC