Radio pulse propagation by a reflection process at the lower ionosphere

Abstract

The groundwave pu lse has bee n co nsidered i n detail by Johler [1962, 1963b]. A t heory was presented as a d irect numer ical an d analyt ic evaluation ot the Fourier transform integral. S uch a t heory can be extended to treat pulsed ionospheric waves. The r efl ect ion process for various model a nistoropic ionospheres has been studied in detail in p revious papers by Johle r [1962] . The a nalys is of the reflec tion coefficient t hus demonstrated is employed to co nst ruct tran sfer fun ctions for the ionospheric wave. These t ra nsfer fun ctions a re t hen introduced into the Fo ur ier transform of the pulse, and the behav ior of LF pulses propagated by a refl ection process at t he ionosphere is determined for t hree mod els for the lower ionosphere. The co mposite ground a nd io nospheri c pulse is for med , a nd a method of tagging a po int-in. time on the pulse is detai led.