ABSTRACT
The idea of using the ionosphere (which was called a ‘‘conducting ionized layer’’ by pioneer researchers during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century [1-11]) for long-distance electromagnetic wave propagation was demonstrated theoretically and practically only in the middle of the twentieth century [12-26]. It is only in recent decades that practical applications were developed, both for long-range land-land radio communications by using the ionosphere as a ‘‘reflected screen,’’ as well as for satellite-land and satellite-satellite links. The basic theories of radio wave propagation through the ionosphere, known as the magneto-ionic theories (see Ref. [13]), were established in the middle of the twentieth century, giving a great impetus to investigations of possibilities of ionospheric radio communication by reflection and scattering from ionospheric layers.
