TYNDAR PRESS

is pleased to offer

THE FRIENDLY IONOSPHERE

by Crawford MacKeand

Price: $7.95 + $3.00 shipping


How do radio signals travel from transmitter to receiver? Why are they sometimes good, sometimes poor, sometimes lost? A very readable and yet comprehensive book on radio propagation, illustrated by two relevant and dramatic stories.


Just a few years ago we celebrated Marconi's first two way transmission of radio messages across the Atlantic, between King Edward in London, England, and President Roosevelt in Washington D.C. But first, in December 1901, was his epoch making transmission from Poldhu to Newfoundland. Did it really happen? Many still think not!! Here's a positive answer with new experimental evidence.


Amelia Earhart's round-the-world flight ended as her plane was lost in the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Under-ocean search is now technically possible and here's an inside track on radio range calculations that are in the data bank of a major search organization. Nauticos Inc. plans to continue the search! Did she land or did she ditch? Can her plane be recovered? Insights into this seventy year old drama of aviation.



CONTENTS. Introduction; The Path from Transmitter to Receiver; Leaving the Transmitter; Ground and Other Waves; The Existence of a Sky-Wave Path; The Signal on its Atmospheric Journey; Noise; Arrival at the Receiver; Final Assembly; The First Transatlantic HF?; Last Signals from KHAQQ; Some Amateur Radio Contacts; Acknowlegements; Bibliography and References; Index

Crawford MacKeand is a retired professional electrical engineer with a lifetime interest in radio, and with amateur radio licenses WA3ZKZ and formerly G4ARR and VP8CMY. He has written an exciting book on that always fascinating aspect of radio communication --- will there be a signal from the distant station, and will it be strong enough to use or to enjoy? He takes the user right through the system from the transmitter to the final useful output of the receiver. Will it be good enough to understand, or will it be swamped in noise. How much noise will there be, where will it come from, and what can be done about it?

To bring this reality into sharp focus, he takes three examples. Marconi's bid to establish a new industry on the premise of Transatlantic radio; the loss of Amelia Earhart and the reconstruction of her final position from radio data, and an analysis of three typical amateur radio contacts under various ionospheric conditions.

In 1901 Marconi claimed to have bridged the Atlantic Ocean by radio. Scientific opinion largely believed it impossible, and many very competent engineers are still highly skeptical today. Here is a demonstration with new experimental evidence of how it is likely to have happened. HF radio could have been born in 1901!

In 1937 Amelia Earhart was lost in her attempt to be the first woman to fly around the world, when she was almost within sight of her mid-Pacific island destination. Records still existing in government and corporate archives have enabled the reconstruction of the final desperate calls from her Lockheed Electra to the waiting U.S. Coast Guard cutter. This information is developed before you into a detailed and highly cogent argument now with Nauticos Inc., a major search organization.

The amateur will enjoy new insights into the best strategies for improved operation, whether contest or casual. The technical reader will see how absorption and fading, atmospheric noise and short-wave radio interference, can affect sky wave and ground wave signal-noise ratio, while taking the important issues of antenna gain, diversity, multipath, aurora and the effects, advantages and disadvantages of the many types of modulation, especially in digital systems, into account.



The FRIENDLY IONOSPHERE is available by mail-order from the publisher,
Tyndar Press at P.O. Box 236, Montchanin DE 19710 for $7.95 + $3 shipping.

Pages: 126 with 35+ illustrations, bibliography, index.
Binding: Trade paperback 6 x 9 Edition: First
Publisher: Tyndar Press, P.O. Box 236, Montchanin DE 19710
ISBN: 0-9659066-5-5 LCCN: 2001126286

CONTACT: (302) 994-9588 or tyndar@juno.com

SNAPmax, a computer program (PC) for calculating radio propagation, using and also illustrating the concepts as described in The FRIENDLY IONOSPHERE, is readily available as freeware.



Also by Crawford MacKeand, and available from Tyndar is "SPARKS and FLAMES",
a unique work on the history of ignition in gas engines, from open flames to hot tubes to magnetos.
Pages: 176 with 80+ illustrations, bibliography, index. Price $14.95 + $3 Shipping
Binding: Trade paperback 6 x 9    Edition: First
ISBN: 0-9659066-4-7 LCCN: 97-90492