Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today propagation is what it is, yesterday it was different and tomorrow it will be different again. It's one of the fundamental aspects of amateur radio. We talk about propagation on air, like we do the weather. Rain, sun, snow or storm, there's always something. Of course most of those weather events have no impact on radio. A rain drop isn't going to make a great deal of difference to a HF signal, other than potentially making the operator wet, or creating a short-circuit in an unexpected way. Propagation on the other hand has little or no effect in day-to-day life, other than your GPS, mobile phone or other electronic device. In radio however, propagation makes the difference between only hearing your neighbours and speaking to another station on the other side of the globe. In the past I've mentioned that if you skip a stone across a lake, you get a good idea about how radio waves bounce off the ionosphere and in doing so, make it possible to hear and be heard beyond the