Radio Propagation Over Plane Earth - Field Strength Curves

H I S paper is intended to facilitate the calculation of radio propagation over plane earth. In Part I curves are presented that show the decrease of field strength with distance for antennas on the surface of the earth. In these curves the results obtained by Sommerfeld 1 and Rolf 2 are corrected and certain approximations 3 introduced by Rolf to reduce the number of variables to a workable number are eliminated. For a discussion of the Sommerfeld-Rolf curves, the reader is referred to a companion paper.4 Part II is concerned with the more general case of antennas above the surface of the earth. The complete equation that gives the field strength for antennas at any height above the earth is r e d u c e d to a simple equation which allows the calculation of the field under conditions of practical interest. To facilitate field strength calculations, the values of the reflection coefficient are presented in the form of curves from which the significant quantities may be read with the required degree of accuracy for all angles of incidence. PRELIMINARY REMARKS