FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES

Frequency Bands for RADAR use

From Richards, Radar Signal Processing

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES ELF

 from 10000 to 1000 Km

ELF waves can propagate in the magnetosphere and beyond. Into the space between Earth and ionosphere there is only a guided propagation into a sferical guide that has conductor walls.

In this picture ionosphere, that starts at 100 Km and goes to 600Km, can not be rappresented.

In this band there are natural and artificial sources.

NATURAL SOURCES: Under this band there are micropulsations due to ionosphere perturbations and to magnetical storms. In this band the noise due to electrical atmospheric discharge is preponderant. Its important to note that in this band there are the Schumann resonances.

ARTIFICIAL SOURCES:
50 and 60 Hz electrical networks (low irradiation); Sanguine project for long distance comications under 100 Hz.

In this band, where >> hearth-ionosphere , electric field is essentially guided.Therefore its possible to use the modal theory to express the propagation in this sferical cavities.
Guide walls are (corrugated). The field can be considered as a modes overlapping, the first, the second and the third terms are shown into the picture:

The purpose of this project was to su pply to:

an high priority message transmission system, for ground, marine and submarine medium, that is able to operate in critic situation as magnetic storms due to Nuclear wars.

This system, that still today is operating, uses carriers setted between 40 Hz and 75 Hz. To achieve the antennas its be necessary to have low conductivity areas (in U.S.A. there are areas having = 1.610-4 -1 a 75 Hz), and must be realized with arrays having 60-120 Km sides.
The band is very narrow, hence its possible to transmit only at low speeds.

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES VF and VLF

VF Voice Frequency 300 3000 Hz

band number 3
--> 1000 100 Km

These waves can propagate well in the Earth-ionosphere waveguide at the highest

frequencies
Dont propagate in this band to avoid disturbance at all electrical-acoustic equipments

VLF Very Low Frequency

3 30 KHz band number 4 --> 100 10 Km (Miriametric waves) Typically we have guided propagation in the earth-ionosphere

waveguide. We can observe that Earth surface has reflection

coefficient +1 (perfect conductor), while the ionosphere has

reflection coefficient -1 (magnetic reflector) at these frequencies; hence modes have different behaviour from that propagating in the standard waveguide. For short distances we neglect curvature effects

(up 1000 km). The sources excite both guided modes and surface
waves.

Attenuation Phase velocity

TM 01 mode

 Natural sources

In this band there are lot of geophysical phenomena; for

example lightning generate signals with large frequency bandwidth. A few hundred metres from the emission point,

the spectrum in VLF band is shown in Fig.2

N.B. The shape of the received spectrum depends both issued spectrum and earth-ionosphere waveguide features
IONOSPHERE

Figura 2.11 earth-ionosphere waveguide

Figura 2.12 whistler example in the earth-ionosphere waveguide

Artificial sources

Many services work at these frequencies; Morse Code transmitter, or standard frequencies for the time signal

dissemination.

The radiated power change from Kilowatt to Megawatt and the

signals are vertical polarizated .

At the frequencies around 10 KHz, there is a georeferencing system, able to cover all world, called OMEGA

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES LF

LF Low Frequency 30 300 KHz band number 5 --> 10 1 Km (Kilometric waves)

At these frequencies the Earth-ionosphere waveguide has height equals to many wavelength; its not suitable to use the modal theory. In this band ray theories are mainly used. The ionospheric effects are the most significant, both because these waves penetrate at highest quote (high electron densities and low particle collisions) and the Earths magnetic field effects are more relevant. During the course a brief description of the ionosphere will be given. Now, it is important to point out the the cyclotronic-electron frequency due Earths magnetic field effects is 1 MHz: we thus expect strong influences due to the Earths magnetic field when the propagation frequency is approached the 1 MHz frequency. These frequencies, like the VLF, are sensible to ionospheric effect caused by solar flares

Services

DECCA System

Decca is an hyperbolic navigation system, where the difference of the receiver ranges from two sources is measured through the time difference of the time arrival of the Synchronized signals transmitted by the two station. If we repeat the measure with another couple of stations, we have the possibility to determine the position of the receiver.

The system has the following features: Sources distance: 70 nautical miles Limited range (300 miles) because the interfence between wave space and wave land Operational frequencies: LF/VLF Particular methods to eliminate phase ambiguous

Fig 2.14 Decca system

Decca system works in continuous wave on 3 frequencies , related harmonically themselves .

We need to make sure to measure only the land wave, because we cant identify and delete the space wave, that creates significant disturbance in the night when the ionospheric absorption is low and consequently the amplitude of space wave is high.

space

wave

land wave

l'antenna deve avere un guadagno abbastanza elevato perch se no ricevo anche elementi da ionosfera

Fig 2.15 Land wave and space wave

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES MF

MF Medium Frequency 0.3 3 MHz band number 6 --> 1 100 Km

At Medium Frequencies the propagation is not guided. In

fact we used ray optics methods. At these frequencies

the propagation for surface waves is particular important.

Details are shown in the following table:

MF Penetration Depth in the ground

Uses

Broadcasting (amplitude mod.) Radionavigation aid (Loran A)

Standard frequencies (2495-2505 KHz)

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES HF

Ionospheric affects are very important at this frequency bands, only through ionospheric reflections it is possible to establish long distances radio links. But, in the upper part of this bandwidth, ionosphere starts to become more transparent, and radio waves can cross this media.

Terrestrial Atmosphere Classifications

IONOSPHERE

PLASMA FREQUENCY
Ionosphere is a ionized gas, where free electrons and positive ions (atoms and molecules) coexist. Given the bigger ions mass, ionospheric properties and propagation characteristics inside ionosphere are defined

by free electrons.
Ions can be considered stationary and uniformly distributed.

Under these conditions, one of the characteristics ionosphere frequencies

is the PLASMA frequency:

where N is the electron volume density [#e-/m3].

The maximum value of the plasma frequency is about 20 MHz

Inside a ionized media characterized by a plasma frequency Fp ~ 20 MHz, all the radio frequencies with f less then Fp will be reflected, while

frequencies greather than Fp will be transmitted. This means that

ionosphere is very important to understand ways and characteristics of HF propagation.

Radio astronomy from Earths ground applies only for frequencies

greater then 20 MHz.

Using HF, radio links between two very far points can be established

exploiting ionospheric and ground reflections.

One of the most important parameter for such propagation mechanism is the MUX (Maximum Usable Frequency). For a given radio path, this

quantity can be foreseen knowing:

- season - solar activity - range - radio link latitude

HF propagation examples

Ionospheric perturbations due in particular to sun activity (solar flares), hardly influence the radio link quality: in fact they modify phase and amplitude of received signals.

Main HF services:
- broadcast - radio-amateur - Standard frequencies broadcast - Space Research

- Radio Navigation

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES VHF

VHF Very High Frequency

30 300 MHz band number 8

from 10 m to 1 m
(Metric waves)

The ionosphere effects became less important because the plasma medium can be supposed: anisotropic; dispersive;

birefractive.

The ionosphere gives rise to some disadvantages in communications which

have to be almost partially removed: Faraday rotation Scintillations Meteorburst propagation

 Meteorburst propagation

The VHF (and also the UHF) can be reflected and transmitted above the transmitter horizon, by columns of plasma generated from
meteors. Thanks to this phenomenon, telegraphic circuits with a single

channel were used at 30 40 MHz with powers of some KW and

ranges of coverage from 500 and 1200 miles.

Figure 4.3 Meteorburst propagation

 Tropospheric propagation

At these frequencies is obviously fundamental the line of sight

propagation. Efficient antennas higher gain lower transmitted

power.

The refraction index of the neutral atmosphere is very close to 1 and almost constant.

Low losses (no absorption) high ranges.

Refractivity (i.e. refractive index) can be defined in function of

atmospheric parameters

where p' is the total pressure in millibar (or hPascal), e is the water

vapour partial pressure (in millibar) and T is the absolute temperature

(in Kelvin).

With h equivalent to the height of the propadating ray from the surface and R as Earth radius

 Knife edge diffraction

The transmission between two antennas may be work also if they are not in view and the superposition of obstacles occurs.
These obstacles can be model in different ways: like a knife edge; with definite radius of curvature

with appropriate models (Bullington, )

FREQUENCY BANDS AND SERVICES ABOVE VHF

OTHER BANDWIDTHS
UHF Ultra High Frequency from 300 to 3000 MHz from 100 to 10 cm decimetric waves SHF Super High Frequency from 3 to 30 GHz from 10 to 1 cm centimetric waves

EHF Extremely High Frequency from 30 to 300 GHz from 10 to 1 mm millimetric waves
DECIMILLIMETRIC WAVES from 300 to 3000 GHz

Infrared Visible Ultraviolet X-rays Gamma rays

1 THz < < 500 THz 500 THz < < 800 THz 800 THz < < 8*106 THz

Problems connected to atmospheric absorption became important above these frequencies.

We can observe experimental results that identify two absorption lines in the range of 60-118 GHz. Consistent with theoretical findings, the absorption lines are due to water vapour.

Phenomena as dew, rime, hoarfrost and ice cant be classified as hydrometeors. The chart indicates how much the attenuation, due to these phenomena, affects the electromagnetic spectrum between 3-3000 GHz=3 THz.

The chart shows how atmospheric gases affect the absorption spectrum in infrared band

Atmospheric Attenuation

From Richards, Radar Signal Processing

Hydrometeors effects are important too in absorption process. Hydrometeors result from atmospheric water vapour condensation or sublimation.

We can classify hydrometeors in:

1) mid air liquid/ice particles

***haze ***fog, mist ***ice fog ***clouds 2) rainy precipitation ***rain 3) snowy precipitation

***snow, snow pellets, grain ***ice, ice pellets, ice crystals ***hail
4) vaporizing before touching the ground particles

5) mid air due to the wind liquid/ice particles

Atmospheric attenuation due to Weather conditions

From Richards, Radar Signal Processing

HINTS ABOUT AVAILABLE SERVICES IN ABOVE MENTIONED FREQUENCY BANDS Broadcasting Reserved to amateur radio operators Standard frequencies Space research Radio aid to navigation

AVAILABLE SERVICES IN LOWER THAN ABOVE MENTIONED FREQUENCY BANDS

Global Positioning System (GPS) gives high georeference informations static and dynamic GLObal Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), Russian georeference information system New generation telephone and satellite relays Radar systems (available for air traffic control, security, scientific remote sensing, )