Abstract
THE great strides made in the development of long-distance radio communication and broadcasting in the past ten years or so have involved the combined efforts of a large number of scientific workers, engineers and operators. These and older students of the subject have become aware of the fact that the transmission of radio waves to distances beyond the horizon and even right round the earth is only possible because of the existence of the ionosphere, which is that portion of the earth‘s atmosphere which becomes electrically conducting by ionization chiefly under the influence of ultra-violet radiation from the sun. But while this conducting region reflects radio waves and so returns them to the earth at a distant point, it does not behave as a simple metallic reflecting sheet in the same position at all times and seasons. It is rather in the nature of a series of partially conducting layers, one above the other, each varying in height and conductivity with time, and the lower ones sometimes shielding the upper ones from radio waves transmitted upwards from the earth‘s surface.
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Radio Communication and the Ionosphere. Nature 162, 465 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162465a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162465a0