Abstract
IN the course of experiments carried out some years ago at the Peterborough Radio Research Station of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Mr. Ratcliffe and I made some observations1 on the state of polarisation of wireless waves after their reflection by the upper atmosphere. On all occasions on which it was possible to obtain reliable measurements it was found that the downcoming waves were very approximately circularly polarised with a left-handed sense of rotation. Since it was known that the waves originally emitted by the sending stations (emitters at both Teddington and Birmingham were used) were plane polarised, with the electric vector in a vertical plane, the experiments showed that the conversion to left-handed circular polarisation had been effected by ionisation in the upper atmosphere during the process of refraction.
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References
"A Method of determining the State of Polarisation of Downcoming Wireless Waves", Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 117, 576; 1928.
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APPLETON, E. Polarisation of Downcoming Wireless Waves in the Southern Hemisphere. Nature 128, 1037 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/1281037a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1281037a0
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