195.

3 43

A Statistical Survey of Atmospheric Index-of-

Refraction Variation

Summary--This paper presents astatisticalsurvey of index- not obscure small ones, a smooth curve was drawn by
of-refraction variations as recorded by an airborne microwave re- eyethroughthesample of data to beconsidered as
fractometer. Scales and intensities of the index variations are given,
as well as the parameterS j l , for data taken over southwest Ohio
shown in Fig. 1. This smoothing process eliminated any
during summer months and over the Pacific Ocean off the westcoast scales larger than about 1,200 feet.
of Washington in August and of in October. Heights from The deviations from such mean lines were measured
2,000 to feet, msl, were consideredwith most of the data taken and these data were used to obtain autocorrelation func-
between and feet. Approximately samples takenon tions and the rms valueof the variations.
flights were analysed. The composite of the data gave the follow-
ing median values:
Index Scale feet
Index Intensitg 0.3 N

aN2 10-4NZ/ft*
I

INTRODUCTION

s INCE the introduction of the theoryof tropospheric

radio wave propagation by scattering by Booker
and Gordon’ therehas beenaneedforexperi-
mental dataon the scale and intensityof index of refrac-
tionvariation.Recentdevelopments of anairborne
atmosphericrefractometer2havemade possible the
measurement of rapid changes in the refractive index
of the atmosphere.
Under the sponsorship and with the cooperation of
the Radiation Laboratory of Wright Air Development
Center,anumber of refractive-indexsoundingswere
made in the general vicinity of the Wright-Patterson
Air Force Base in southern Ohio during the summer of
1952. Under the sponsorship of Cambridge Air Force
Research Center, and with the cooperation of this center
and theAir Defense Command, refractometer soundings
were taken off the west coast of Washington in August
1952 and of California in October 1952. Although these
data were taken primarily for index profiles, they can Fig. 1-Sample refractive index traces.
be conveniently used to obtain scales and intensities of
index variations. XIETHOD OF APPROXIMATE
C.4LCULATIOKS
The exact calculations described in the previous sec-
METHODOF DETAILED CALCULATIONS tionwere so time-consuming that a comprehensive
The original data used were recorded on Esterline- survey of data by this method would have been almost
Angusgraphicalrecordswithtracessimilar to those impossible.For this reason, anapproximatemethod
shown in Fig. 1. In order that large scale changes mould was used.
In this approximate method, the graphical data were
The Index Intensity (d(m) is the root mean square of the
prepared exactly as for the more detailed calculations.
deviation of N from its average value and the Index Scale is the I t was assumed that the variations were sinusoidal and
distance at: which the autocorrelation function of A X drops to 0.5. the intensity was taken as0.707 times the average peak
is related to the index of refraction (n)by N=(n--I)X106.
H. G. Booker p d N 7 . E. Gordon, theory of radio scattering value. The scale defined as the 0.5 point of the auto-
in the troDosDhere. h o c . I.R.E.. vol. 38. DD. 401-412: I
correlations was approximated by taking 1/6 of the aver-
C. drain and A. P . Deam, “An airborne microwave refrac-
tometer,“ Rm. Scieltti$c Instruments, V O ~ .23, pp. 149-151; 1952. age period of the fluctuations.

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 October

IO

u.

b
I I I
200 300

Fig. 2-Profiles of mean intensity over 1,000-foot Fig. 3-Profiles of mean scale over 1,000-footaltitude intervals.
altitude i n t e n d s .

A comparison of theintensitiesand scales asde-

termined by the more detailed and by the approximate
method showed remarkably good agreement. 90
.38
By using this approximate method it was possible to
examineapproximately 1,200 samplestakenfrom 34 2000 10,000

flights. Data from a number of other flights with dif- .38

ferent scale ranges were examined and found to evi-
dence no major difference in characteristics of the index .I8
scales and intensities. a

STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF SCALE AND IKTENSITY

Statisticaldistributions were determinedforeach I

thousand-foot interval between 2 and 12 thousand feet u.

0
and for the entire interval. The median values of in- I-
tensity and scale as functions of elevation are shown in
Fig. 2 and Fig. 3. Composite distribution curves for the
a
three locations are shown in Fig. and Fig. 5. 30

TRENDS
IN INTENSITY-HEIGHTDATA

Generalities regarding the characteristics of the data

are difficult, a s s h o wby the classifications of the
intensity-height curves shown in Fig. 6. This classifica-
tion included the datafrom all threeheights. I t appears,
0
however, that there is no continuous variation of in- 0
tensities greater than 0.2 except in the first feet
abovethesurface or near some cloud or inversionlayers. Fig. 4 4 u e r - a l l intensity distributions.

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 0 2000

2000 lO,O00

2000
93
95

IO%

0.002. o m 0 . 0 0 ~4005. 4009

(ANP
Y
A N2
Fig. 7- based on 1,200 samples.

11-4LUE O F PARAMETER =/I

IO In thescatteringtheory proposed by Booker and
Gordon 11, the strengthof the scatteredsignal is found
to be proportional to AN”1 for off -beam scatteringwhen
the scale of index is large compared to the wavelength.
Fig. 5-Over-all scale distributions. Probabilitydistributioncurves were plotted for each
1,000-foot interval between 2 and 12 thousand feet and
the values exceeded 10, 50, and 90 per cent of the time
were obtained from these graphs. The values plotteda as
function of altitude are shown in Fig. 7.
DAT-4 FOR ELEVATIONS
ABOVE 12,000 FEET
Approximately 100 soundings have been made a t t h e
various sites previously mentioned, in which the maxi-
mum altitude was 15,000 feet. For those soundings the
refractometers were operated with scales in the 50-80
N-unit range, with a resulting meter vibration “noise”
level of the order of .2 N-unit for all data except the
southwest Ohio data, where the noise level was less
than .1 N-unit. Visual survey of these data indicated
that very rarely was one able to find any fluctuations
above about 12,000 feet which could be separated from
the noise level, and never were the fluctuation magni-
tudes appreciably greater than noise level.
Some 20 soundings have been made in the southwest
Ohio vicinity to altitudes of 25,000 feet or more. Ex-
22.3
amination of the recording for two of these soundings
have revealed no measurablefluctuations associated
with scales of less than 100 feet above 15,000 feet.
The PropagationUnit at theAircraftRadiation
Laboratory has made a flight to 25,000 feet during which
data were obtained on a recorder having a time con-
stant of the order of .01 seconds, and using a scale of
approximately 1 37-unit per inch of deflection. The re-
sults of the flight were not completely satisfactory asa
3.7 H. I. 3.7 peak to “noise” level of near 0.5 1V-unit existed;
Fig. 6-Shapes of intensity profile trends and per cent of however, a study of the data has indicated no measur-
time each occurred. able index fluctuations above9,000 feet. These data were

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46 I.R.E. TRANSACTIOA’S-ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION October

obtained .April 7, 1953 near Dayton, Ohio. Fig. 8 shows
samples of the recorded data. (The noise level was de-
termined by closing off the airflow around the sampling line-Angus meter used t o record all the data reportedin
cavity during flight.)
Fig.8-Indes of refraction variations obtained with a high
DISCUSSION OF THE RECORDING h’fETER RESPOKSE
Some doubt may existas t o whether or not the Ester-
the statistical summaries had adequate frequency re-
sponse t o follow accurately the index fluctuations en-
countered. The response of the refractometer metering
amplifier as recorded on the Esterline-Angus meter was
down to 0.7 a t 0.8 cycle per second and down to 0.2 a t
3 cycles per second. Thus with a plane speed near 200
feet per second, itis obvious that if fluctuations havinga
scale of this order or less are present they will be re-
corded with reduced amplitude or perhaps missed com-
pletely. A study of the frequency distribution of the
indexrecordingsobtainedonsensitive scales (7.5 X -
units full scaleon the Esterline-Angusmeter)indi-
cates that the Esterline-Angus response is adequate at
altitudes of hundreds of feet above the earth’s surface.
This conclusion has been tentatively verified bythe
data recorded on the high-speed recorder as shown in
Fig. 8. Additionalmeasurementswith high-speed re-
corders and sensitive index scales are contemplated in
the near future.
frequency response recorder.

Electrically Small Antennas and the Low-Frequency

Aircraft Antenna Problem
J. T. BOLLJAHNT, SENIOR M E ~ E R ,IRE, F. REESET
R.D
.~T

Summary-This paper is concerned with the properties of anten-

lengths many times larger than the major dimensions
nas which are relative to their operating wavelength. A brief
of most of the aircraft receiving the transmissions. It
analysis based upon quasi-staticprinciples is presented, and two
follows thatthe airborne receiving antennas, which
experimental procedures suggested by the nature of the analytical
consist in part of the airframes themselves, fall into the
results are described. The application of these experimental pro-
“electrically small” category.
cedures is illustrated with examples of measurements made in con-
nection with the design of low-frequency aircraft antennas. When concerned with low-frequency antenna design
problems, the antenna engineer finds his requirements
INTRODUCTION
t o be particularly exacting becauseof the inherent limi-

A NTENNAS which areelectrically small areno- tations of suchantennas,and because his standard
tably inefficient, and theiruse is generally limited measuring equipment is largely unsuited to the task.
to applications in which the space available for This paper presents an analysis which is intended t o
antennas is too small to permit the use of resonant-size clarify certain aspects of the operationof such antennas
antennas. Electrically small antennasfind extensive ap- andpresents a description of measuringtechniques
plication,however, in the field of long-rangenaviga- which may be used in their design.
tional aids for aircraft. Here, the requirements for re-
liability and low attenuation of the transmissions from QUASI-STATIC FIELDS
the groundstationsmakeit necessary to use wave- Let us consider the problem of the diffraction of a
t Stanford Research Institute, Stanford, Calif. plane electromagnetic wave by a perfectly conducting

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