ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapters, we concentrated on cell phone system communications where ranges of a few kilometers are of interest, or on wireless local area networks (WLANs) where ranges are a few tens of meters. However, from its onset, wireless communications has demonstrated its capacity for long-range communications across vast oceans and, nowadays, across interplanetary space. In this chapter, we explore how the physical properties of the inner layer of the earth’s atmosphere (the troposphere) and the outer layer (the ionosphere) may be used to extend the range of communications beyond the line-of-sight limit of communications before the discovery of radio frequency (RF) waves. In Chapter 8, we will describe the role of artificial satellites of the earth in extending the frequency range of worldwide wireless communications.
