'Wild' bearings in high-frequency direction finding
Abstract
Criteria for rejecting wild bearings are examined, and a systematic approach to wild-bearing rejection is proposed. The principal features of long-range HF ionospheric propagation and the directional characteristics of reflected radio waves are summarized, and the statistical distribution of HF bearings is described. It is shown that rejection of wild bearings is legitimate only if a case of signal misidentification has occurred or if the propagation conditions do not allow a normal ray path. In all other cases, an exceptionally large bearing error is shown to be the result of the statistics to which HF bearings are subject, and rejection on the basis of error magnitude alone is discouraged.
- Publication:
-
Institution of Electrical Engineers Proceedings
- Pub Date:
- April 1975
- Bibcode:
- 1975IEEP..122..337R
- Keywords:
-
- Bearing (Direction);
- Error Analysis;
- Ionospheric Propagation;
- Radio Direction Finders;
- High Frequencies;
- Ray Tracing;
- Signal Fading;
- Sky Waves;
- Statistical Analysis;
- Communications and Radar