806

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, VOL.AP-15, NO. 6, NOVEMBER 1967

VI. CONCLUSIONS
A practical technique is developed forthe analysis of
scattering by a thin wirewithfinite length and imperfect
conductivity. The method is based on an integral equation
for the current induced in the wire by an incident wave. This
integral equation is enforced at discrete points on the axis
of the wire to generate a system of linear algebraic equations
for thecoefficients in aseries expansion for the currentfunction.
Numerical results are presented for the backscatter echo
area of copper, platinum, and bismuth wires at the broadside aspect. These results show good agreement with experimental data and variational calculations which have been
published for wire lengths up to 0.6X. In addition, graphs
are included to show the current distributions onthese wires
at the second resonance, the phase-angle and echo-area
patterns for oblique incidence, and the broadside echo-area
curves for perfectly conducting and copperwires withlengths
up to 3.54X. Bistatic scattering data can readily be calculated with this technique. The calculations are rapid and

efficient even when a large number of terms are retained in

the series expansion for the current.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Innumerabletechnical discussions with G .A. Thiele proved
most helpful in this study, and sincere appreciation is expressed.

REFERENCES
P I R. G. Kouyoumjian, The calculation of the echo areas of perfectly conducting objects by the variational method, Ph.D. disserta-

tion, Dept. of Elec. Engrg., Ohio State University, Columbus, December1953.

[*I E. S. Cassedy and J. Fainberg, Back scattering cross sections of
cylindrical wires of iinite conductivity, IRE Trans. Anremas and
Propagation, vol. AP-8, pp. 1-7, January 1960.
P I J. H. Richmond, Digital computer solutions of the rigorous
equations for scattering problems, Proc. IEEE, vol. 53, pp. 796-804,
August 1965.
[I Y. Y. Hu, Back scattering cross section of a center-loaded
cylindrical antenna, IRE Trans. Anremas and Propagarion, vol. AP-6,
pp. 14&148, January 1958.

On Radio-Wave Propagation in Forest

Environments
THEODOR TAMIR,
Abstract-Propagation of electromagnetic waves in forest environments at medium and high (1-100 M H z ) frequencies is examined for the
case where both the transmitting and receiviug points are situated within
the vegetation. A dissipative slab in the presence of a reflecting ionosphere
is employed to describethe forest con6guration. If the effect ofthe groundforest interface is disregarded, the radiated field of an arbitrarily oriented,
small dipole is found to consist primarilyof two separate waves: a lateral
wave which skims along the tree tops, and a sky wave which is produced
by a single-hop reflection at the ionospheric layer. These two field constituents are compared andtheir domains of preponderance are calculated
for a large range of the pertinent parameters; it is then found that the
lateral wave plays the major role since the sky wave is restricted to a narrow frequency band and its amplitude is appreciable only at large distances.
The lateral-wave field is examined in detail and is shown to yield a
simple physicalpicture for the propagation mechanismin forests. Its feaManuscript received January 6, 1967; revised June 16, 1967. This
work was sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Washington, D. C., as part of Project Seacore, and was under the supervisionof the Communications Laboratory, U. s. Army Electronics
Command, Fort Monmouth, N. J. This paper was presented orally
at the 1966 Fall URSI Meeting, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
under the title High frequency lateral and sky wave propagation in
forest environments.
The author is with the Department of Electrophysics, Polytechnic
Institute of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, N. Y.

SEhToR MEMBER, IFEE

tures are found to be qualitatively consistentwith the fieldbehavior

reported in the literature and the quantitative aspects agree well with the
available experimental data. The observed
variation of the field
with
distance, the height-gain effect,the vegetation factor, the basic path loss,
and depolarization effects are separately examined and are all shown to
express merely one or another of the intrinsic properties of a lateral wave.
The ground-proximity effect produced
by the presence ofa planar-couducting groundis also estimated andshown to be of minor importance in most
Cases.

I. INTRODUCTION
T HAS LONG been recognized that communication by
means of radio waves in forest environments is hampered by transmission losseswhich aresubstantially
higher than those occurring in the absence of vegetation.
Extensive experimental investigations111-[31of propagation
conditions in forests haverevealed that the transmission
losses may be characterized as follows.

1) For constant antenna heights, the received field varies

inversely as the distance squared.
2) The presence of vegetation produces a constant loss
(expressed as a vegetation factor) which seems to be independent of the distance between thecommunicationterminals.

>

.
I

TAMIR: RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

3) The transmission loss is reduced by raising either the

receiving or the transmitting antenna. This produces a
height-gaineffect which, when measured in decibels,
varies roughly logarithmically or linearly with the antenna
height. 121
4) The received field may be considerably depolarized,[31
relative to the orientation of the transmitting antenna.
The characteristics of (1) to (3) are clearly caused by the
dissipative nature of the vegetation and possibly by that of
the ground supporting it. The experimental data[11-[21
conh e d these characteristics over frequencies inthe range
1-100 MHz and over distances up to 30 miles. The depolarization feature (4) was observedr31 at 50-100 MHz and distances up to 4 miles. This effect may be understood in terms
of scattering by the vegetation; due to its conductivity, the
foliage supports induced currents that tend to be randomly
oriented and therefore they produce a depolarization of the
overall field.
The present work is a study of wave propagation in the
range 1-100 MHz when both the transmitting and the receiving antenna are in the vegetation. The dimensions involved are then such that a forest may be suitably represented in terms of a conducting dielectric layer bounded by
ground below and by an air region above. An ionospheric
layer is also introduced, so that the complete model involves
three interfaces, namely: ground-forest, forest-air, and airionosphere. However, it turns out that
the first interface
(which accountsfor a ground wavein the absence of
vegetation) playsonly a minor role when the forest layer
is sufficiently dense. Of considerably greater importance are
the forest-air and air-ionosphere interfaces which are shown
to account for strong field contributions in the form of a
lateral and a sky wave, respectively.
The sky wave consists of the familiar single-hop reflection
from theionosphere and occurs at the lower frequencies only.
The lateral wave, on the other hand, is present at all frequencies and travels mostly in the air region by skimming
over the tree tops. This wave is analogousto the ground wave
which progresses along the air-earthinterface in the absence
of the vegetation layer. However, the ground wave is associated with the ground interface and its parameters, whereas
the lateral waveis tied to the air-forest interface and its
characteristics are determined by the electrical properties of
the vegetation rather than by those of the ground.
Over practical distances of 100 km or less, the present
study shows that the lateral wave is usually stronger than
the sky wave, except possibly at the lower frequencies and
larger distances. Since the lateral wave plays the major role,
its properties are examined in detail and they are found to
offer a satisfactory explanation for all of the propagation
features in(1) and (4). The field pertinent to thelateral
wave is also given and it is shown that its mathematical expression enables us to derive quantitative predictions concerning propagation properties. In view of the greatly simplified model, these predictions agree remarkably well with
the available experimental results.

a07

11. THESLAB MODELOF THE FORET

Most previous studies of propagation in forests have
utilized models which did not account for the electromagnetic properties of the vegetation but considered instead a
plane or curved earth where propagation was assumed to
be affected byterrain irregularitie~[~]
or diffraction 1eakage.w
Alternatively, empirically or statistically derived correction
factors were u t i l i ~ d [ ? l ~ ~ 6account
1 t o for the forest portion.
Although these models are suitable for establishing propagation criteria containing empirical parameters which are
determined experimentally, they do not lead to a simple
physical understanding of the wave mechanism which is
responsible for the actual propagation process.
The first attempt to account directly for the presence of
vegetation seems to have
been
made by Pounds and
LaGroner7l who suggested that a forest be viewed as a dissipative dielectric slab. Theslab
concept wasusedby
Lippmanisl to establish an equivalent circuit for the forest
and propagationin such a model was considered by Taylor,[gl
who assumed that the field in the forest was produced by a
sky wave reflected from the ionosphere. A major step forward was taken by
Sachs and
who disregarded the
sky wave and considered instead a lateral wave. Their work
recognized the importance of this tree-top mode of
propagationand showed that many of the experimental
results[2] agreed with the lateral-wave mechanism.
The present work adopts the lossy- (dissipative) slab concept originally proposed by Pounds and LaGrone but does
not restrict it to either the lateral-wave or the sky-wave
propagation modes. By carrying out a more inclusive
analysis which accounts for bothwave types, it is shown that
each of these predominates within different ranges of the
various parameters.
The basic slab geometry is shown in Fig. 1 where the
conductive slab is assumed to represent a forest with an
average tree height h ; the plane geometry is adequate even
for large distances p = ( ~ ~ + y ~ )since
~ ~ both
,
the sky wave
andthelateral
wave are only slightly affected by small
amounts of curvature. The transmitteris located at a height
zo above ground and is assumed to consist of a smallcurrent
element of moment IZ inclined at anangle y with respect t o
the x axis. The forest is characterized by the complex refractive index n given by:

n2 =

u1

- j -= e

- j6OulXo

(1)

WE0

where
denotes the average relative permittivity and u1
indicates the average conductivity of the forest medium; eo
and X. are the absolute permittivity and the wavelength in
air (vacuum) of a wave with frequencyf. A time dependence
ejwtis assumed and MKS units are implied unless otherwise
specified.
1 Xore added i n proo) A similar treatment was subsequently carried
out by J. R. Wait in Asymptotic Theory for Dipole Radiation in the
Presence of a Lossy Slab Lying on a Conducting Half-space, IEEE
Trans. Anteruzas urd Propagation, vol. AP-15, pp. 645-648, September
1967.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANIENNAS AND PROPAGATION,

808

NOVEMBER 1967

effective reflection plane at any given frequencyf. Since the

lowest value of H is about 100 k m , one has that
h << p

< H.

(3)

Inequality (3) will be frequently employed throughout the

following discussion.
111. THEVARIOUS

GROllND

Fig. 1. Basic geometry for the forest propagation model.

The wavelength X. must be sufficiently large if the representation of the forest in terms of a uniform, continuous
medium is valid. Noting that the average separation between
trees is1-5 meters and that the intervening space is usually
Wed with foliage and other vegetation, an upper frequency
off = 100 MHz (i.e., a minimum wavelength ofho= 3 meters)
seems reasonable. The lower frequency is restricted to 1
MHz due to theoretical considerations mentioned in Section I11 and discussed in the Appendix. These considerations also prescribe a minimum range of observation p such
that, in general, p> 1 km. However, it is shown in the Appendix that p may be considerably smaller than 1 km at the
higher frequencies. For practicalreasons,the
discussion
will also be restricted to p< 100 km since forests are not
expected to preserve sufficient uniformity at longer ranges.
Theforestparameters el and ul turnout to be rather
critical and, unfortunately, only a very limited amount of
data concerning their actual values are available. Certain
theoretical considerations predictI7l -[li1 that el = 1.1 - 1.2
while u1 is of the orderof 1 P mho/m. To ensure an exhaustive converage for all possible circumstances, theranges
considered here are

1.01 5

5 1.5, a.nd

u1 2 10-j mho/m.

These ranges extend considerably beyond those found by

Parker and HagnIill by measurements in a large variety of
forest vegetation. Since dense forests exhibit largevalues for
both u1 and el- 1 while thin forests yield small values for
these parameters, one expects that el- 1 is roughly proportional to u1 in such a manner that the lower limits (ul= 10-5
and el= 1.01) and the higher limits (al= l e 3 and el= 1.5)
occur together. If it is then assumed that ui is frequency
independent, one obtains the approximation

WAVE CONTRIsUnONS TO THE

FIELD

An examination of the various parameters presented in

the foregoing reveals that, as shown in the Appendix, the
field at distances p> 1 km may be considered to lie in a
region for which an asymptotic evaluation is adequate. It is
then possible to obtain a solution of the radiated field for
the model shown in Fig. 1, but the result is algebraically
complicated. A considerable simplification occurs if the
ground effect is neglected by assuming the simplified geometry of Fig. 2. The new model is equivalent to a forest halfspace ratherthanaslab,and
is obtained by lettingthe
ground-forest boundary recede to z= - 33. This simplification is justiiied by previous quantitativeres~lts,[~l
,[101 as well
as by the considerations discussed in Section VI.
In the simplified problem, the various contributionsto the
field at theobservationpoint R areillustratedinFig.
2
andtheirmathematical expressions and physical features
are given in the following.

A . The Forest Geometric-Optical Contribution

In the absence of the ionosphere, the situation shown in
Fig. 2 reduces to that of a single half-space problem. The
basic waves which then appear are a direct ray and a reflected ray shown by the trajectories TR and TSR, respectively, and these rays constitute the geometric optical contribution for that case. The electric field E(F)which corresponds to these waves is givenin the l i t e r a t u ~ e [ ~ ~and
] - [ ~may
~I
be cast into the form:
e-jkanr,

E(F' = 3011

.fd

___ + f r
e-1::

p
)

rr

(4)

where ko= q/Go

is the wavenumber of air (vacuum),while
rd and rT designate distances along the trajectories TR and
TSR, respectively;fd andf?are, in general, functions of the
geometry, and the subscripts d and r refer to the direct and
reflected rays, respectively. The time dependence eiw' is
implied and omitted in (4),as well as in all subsequent expressions.

B. The Sky- Waoe Contribution

The presence of the ionospheric layer a t z = H introduces

another
major geometric-optical contribution, namely, a
n2 - 1 = el - 1 - j6OulXO 'v GOulXo,
(2)
single-hop sky wave described by the
ray
trajectory
which holds up to frequencies of 1G15 MHz.This approxi- TJKLMNPQR of Fig. 2. A greatly simplified path for this
wave is shown in Fig. 3, where the ionosphere is assumed to
mation agrees well with the experimental results obtained
by Parkerand Hagnrlllwho also c o n h e d that u1 does provide a sharp reflection and the refractions at the forestair interface are disregarded since I nl is usually close to
indeed seem to be frequency independent.
As discussed subsequently, the ground parameters have unity. While admitting that such a model for the sky wave
a minor effect so that they need not be accurately known. is quite naive, it is nevertheless adequate for obtaining a
sky-wave amplitude
The ionosphere height H corresponds to the height of the first-order result forcomparingthe

SO9

TAMIR: RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

I \

the absorption losses in the ionosphere and constitutes a

term which is strongly dependent on time, frequency, and
geography.
It is recognized that (5) through (9) describe the primary
contribution to the sky wave. Additional contributions due
to multihop reflections may be neglected since they have to
travel a t least twice the distance traversed by the primary
wave.

*IR

C. The Lateral- Waae Contribution

Fig. 2. The simplified forest model and thevarious field contributions.

Ionospnere

If the forest medium was lossless, any additional diffraction fields would be negligible in comparison to the above
geometric-optical contributions. In the present dissipative
case, however, it turns out that
a diffraction component
provides a dominant portion of the field over a large range
of the parameters involved.
The component in question is the lateralwave which may
be described by the quasi-optical ray trajectory TABR in
Fig. 2. This wave corresponds to the radiation emitted a t
the critical angle of total reflection 0, given by
sin 0,

( 10)

=11.

and appears when radiation occurs from a denser medium

to a rarer one. Strictly speaking, the angle 8, is defined for 12
real only, i.e., when a lossless medium exists in the lower
half space. However, the physical interpretations are still
valid if the losses are small (Im n<<l ) and then the real
part of n is implied in (10).
Fig. 3. Simplified ray path for the evaluation of the sky wave.
The ray generating the lateral wave proceeds from the
source and is refracted into the upper(air) medium wherein
with the amplitudes of the other wave contributions, pro- it travels tangentially along the boundary while leaking energy back into thelower (forest) medium along the direction
vided one takes the ionospheric absorption into account.
With the simplified ray path of Fig. 3, the electric field of of the angle e,. Some of this energy therefore reaches the observation point via the path BR shown in Fig. 2. The ionothe sky wave at the observation point R is given by:
spheric layer has only a vanishingly small effectsince the
E Z ( S=
) ES sin Oi sin y:
( 3 lateral-wave field decreases rapidly in the air region at large
E ~ ( sV)
COS ei COS 4 COS y,
(6) distances away from the interface.[l31 Hence, the contribution of the lateral wave in the forest is found to an excellent
= - Es cos 8i sin 4 cos y t
( 3 approximation by disregarding the ionosphere, so that one
where, for convenience, the field components are written in again deals with a single interface separating two half-space
terms of a cylindrical coordinate system (p,4, z ) whose ori- regions as in the case of the direct and reflected rays disfound in the
gin coincides with that of the rectangular system used in the cussed previously. This situation maybe
literature [121--[131 where it is shown that the lateral wave apforegoing, and B i is the inclination angle of the wave.If
inequality (3) is accounted for and the phase shift along the pears in the form:
ray trajectory in the air region is disregarded, the amplitude
E,fLj v EL(.\/n2 - 1 cos 4 COS y sin y),
(11)
Es is given by
E ~ ( Lv) EL[(n?- 1) cos 4 cosy
vn* - 1 sin 71: (12)

nl

EL sin 4 cos y,

(13)

where3

where
s=2h-zo-z

(9)

is the total separation of the source and observation points

from the forest-air interface. This separation distance swill
be shown to be an important factor in forest propagation.
The factor A denotes the reduction in the field produced by

__
60 I1 e- jJ:o (p+n-l

EL = ___.
n3- 1

P?

a)

(14)

2 Note that n2#1 since PZ is restricted to values spelled out in Section 11.

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, NOVEMBER 1967

810

One may easily verifythat the first and second terms in (11)
through (13) correspond to the horizontal andvertical components of the current element, respectively. The 'v sign
indicates that the aforementioned results were obtained via
an asymptotic evaluation which is, however, very accurate
at large distances p. The dependence of the lateral wave on
P - ~ , as compared to a geometric optical variation of p-l,
reflects the fact that the lateral wave is only a quasi-optical
contribution. Its more pronounced geometric attenuation is
due to the continuous energy leakage across the interface
along the lateral portion AB of its path. Although the general behavior of this wave was already found by Moore and
Blair['61 in their studies of radiation from sources immersed
in highly-dissipative media, they restricted themselves to the
case In 1>>1 which is not applicable here.
This completes the listof major contributions to the field
and any other diffraction componentsare ignored since
they are of lower order.[12;

one may replace thesec Bi terms in (8) with unity and obtain

where S stands for the separation factor

ears,

with

a)?

27r

Im ( d n 2- 1 - n): (1'7)

Ao

and CY,
is therefore a relative attenuation factor which indicates the difference in exponential decay between the lateral
and the sky waves. Numerical calculationsshow that a,<0.5
dBjm for all of the pertinent ranges of cl,el, and ha. Hence,
S is close to unity, except at the largestvalues of the separation parameter s. If S=l (i.e., the case s>>l is excluded), the
lateral and sky contributions become equal at a distance

IV. COMPARISON
OF THE LATERAL
AND SKYWAVES
The attenuation produced by the forest medium affects
the various waves differently. In particular, it is noted from
(4) that the path of the forest geometric-optical contribution occurs entirely within the (lossy) forest medium and
therefore ECP) contains exponential terms which (due to n
being complex) producea decayover an extended range
r e r z p . By contrast,thelateraland
sky waves travel
mostly within the (lossless) air region. Examination of (8)
and (14) shows that the decay of these waves occurs only
over a much shorter range s<<p. It is therefore evident that
the forest geometric-optical contribution is negligibly small
compared to the other waves except possibly at very short
distances. Thus, even for small dissipation (u1= 10-5 mho/m)
the forest wave is down by at least 60 dB compared to the
lateral wave for all p> 1 km and f> 1 MHz.
One is therefore leftto compare the lateralwave with the
sky wave. The latter is available only at frequencies below
the maximum usable frequency (MUF), which is equal to
the critical frequency in the present case of nearly vertical
incidence. This establishes an upper limit of about 10 MHz,
above which the lateral wave clearly predominates. Another
important point is the choice between vertical or horizontal
polarization. Since H>_100 km, the angle Bi is smaller than
25.6" for p< 100 km. Hence, thehorizontalpolarization
is definitely preferable for exciting the skywavesince
sin &<cos ei in (5) through (8). For the lateral wave, it was
shown by Staiman and Tamir[l51that an optimum-inclination angle Y~ exists, but the improvement obtained by operatingthedipole
at
ratherthanhorizontally
(y=O), is
important only when
and/or Ep(L)are
larger
than
E+(L),i.e., if In2- 1 > 1. In the present case, I$- 1 I is of
the order of unity or less, so that Em(L)
is usually of the order
of
or larger, while Ep(L)is smaller. It is thereforeappropriate to compare E,(L) with E,(s).
Noting that

1 < see Bi

< see 25.6'

1.10'7,

(15)

For large values of S, the two waves become equal at

where S is obtained from (17). One may now introduce approximation (2) and obtain:

where all quantities are in MKS units. A more convenient

choice of units yields:
@Ob)
where pw and Hare measured in km, c1is given in mmhos/m,
and the approximation 60-200
was also utilized.
Although (20) is a very simple relation,thefactor
Ai
complicates the evaluation of pes because of the very large
temporaland geographical variations of the ionospheric
losses. To accountfora sufficientlywide range,thediscussion is therefore continued by considering daytime and
nighttime conditions separately. It should be also emphasized that stable conditions are treated, i.e., only reflections
from the E, F1,
and F2 layers are considered, whde sporadicE, spread-F, and other effects or anomalies are disregarded.

A . Nighttime Comiitiorzs
Nighttime conditions prove to be the simpler case since
the variation of Ai is then relatively small and the ionospheric
reflection is produced by a single (I?)layer only. Depending
on geography, the sunspot cycle and other factors, one obt a i n ~ [ ' ~ ] - -the
[ ~ ~following
]
two extreme conditions.

811

TAMIR: RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

t
(MHz1

P " q

Fig. 4. Domains of lateral- and sky-wave contributions during nighttime regime. The units for the abscissa are: p in k m , ~1 in mmho/m.

Fig. 5. Ionospheric absorption A ; versus frequencyfunder

various daytime propagation conditions.

Favorable
Conditions
Absorption coefficient A;
Effective height H
Maximum usable frequency (MUF)

0.7
100
6

Unfavorable
Conditions
0.5
200 km
2 MHz

The graph in Fig. 4 is obtained by inserting the values

shown in the table into (20). For values of 1<f< 6 MHz, Ai
and H a r e such that they yield values for p which may lie in
the cross-hatched region of Fig. 4. In this region, either the
sky wave or the lateral wave may dominate depending on a
more precise determination of Ai, H, and MUF. Outside
this ratherambiguous region, the preponderantwave variety
is well defined and is appropriately indicated in Fig. 4.
Since the quantitites A;, H, and M U F are variable with
both time and location, it is seen from Fig. 4 that the sky
wave appears as the major stabk contribution only at frequencies below 2 MHz and distances p > 2 . 8 ~ , - ~ ! where
~,
p
and u1 are measured in km andmmhoslm, respectively.
Thus, for the usually encountered value of ul= l e 4mho/m,
the sky wave dominates only if the distance is about 10 km
or larger. Hence, the lateral wave is the one that affords the
more dependable contribution at distances up to roughly 10
km, iff <2 MHz and it is clearly dominant at all practical
distances ( p < 100 km) for f >2 MHz.

B. DaJrtime Conditions
It is rather difficult to obtain a clear-cut comparison between the sky and lateral waves during the daytime due to
exceedingly large variations of the parameters Ai, the maximum usable frequency (MUF), and the ionospheric height
H . In analogy to the favorable and unfavorable conditions
discussed above for the nighttime regime: two extreme situations are considered which cover all but rarely encountered
variations of the "quiet"ionosphere.['g]
The ionospheric losses for the twoextreme conditions are
given in Fig. 5 where the curves with the lowest and highest
losses correspond to themost favorable of unfavorable situations, respectively. The maximum usable frequencies are

Fig. 6. Domains of lateral- and sky-wave contributions during daytime regime. The units for the abscissa are: p in km, u1 in mmho/m.

assumed to be 6 and 15 MHz, respectively; these are also

indicated in Fig. 5 by letting Ai become infinite at the appropriate frequencies. The virtual height H may be taken,
for simplicity, to vary as:

7.5

104

+ 2.5 x I O - y

(31)

where f is measured in Hz. Although this approximation is

poor, the error that is introduced by using (21) when calculating pes is considerably less than the error introduced by
the uncertainty in the actual value of Ai.
Inserting the values of A i into (20) and using (21) leads
to the values of p which are incorporated into the diagram
shown in Fig. 6. When this diagram is compared with the
analogous nighttime situation shown in Fig. 4, it is evident
that the domain wherein the lateral- and the sky-wave contributions may possess comparable magnitudes is considerably more extensive during daytime. This is, of course, due
to the considerably larger variations of Ai in the latter case.
The aforementioned considerations show that, although
the sky-wave frequency range iswider during daytime, it
may be stronger than the lateral waveonly at distances

812

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, NOVEMBER

1967

which exceed a value of p=2u1-* km, where ul is measured

in mmho/m. However, adverse ionospheric conditions may
considerably affect this value and pes may then occur at a
distance which is larger by one order of magnitude and even
more. This would exclude any significant contribution via
the sky wave, except within a narrow range of values which
is givenby the triangular region in Fig. 6. In particular,
it should be noted that p> 10 km for that region and, if
ul=O.O1 mmho/m, the pertinent value becomes p> 100 km.

is large compared to wavelength, otherwise the lateral wave

will be scattered too much and lose its consistency.
Another interesting aspect of the recent
is that the p- dependence was confirmed up todistances
as shortas 0.2 mile. It is recalled that the lower limit of 1 km
taken in the present analysis is due to limitations imposed at
short ranges by certain assumptions involvedin the field
representation discussed in Section I11 (see also the Appendix). Theexperimental results indicatetherefore that the
lower limit ma37 be smaller.

v. DISCUSSION
AND COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL
DATA
The resultsof Section IV show that, except for a restricted B. The Vegetation Factor
The presence of vegetation affects EL via a factor
range wherein the sky wave may be dominant, the field in
a forest model of the type considered here is primarily in
F , = I n2- 1 I eLs,
(24)
the form of a lateral wave, as given in (1 1) through (14).
In particular, the intensity of this field is characterized by since the refractive index n is a function of the forest parameters pl and e.Due to the separation distances appearing in
(14) which yields a magnitude
the exponential term, theheight of the vegetation aboce both
60 II
the receiving and transmitting antennas is rather important.
.-e-aLs *
IELI =
(2%
It is interesting to observe that the lateral-wave model imIn2-11
p2

plies that the vegetation filling thespace between thetranswhere,

mitter and receiver has no effect apart from providing a
structure whichguides the wave along. To explain this,
27r
C ~=
L - 1772 (d72- I),
(23) Janskyand Bailey,121 andthereafter Burrows,IGl need to
X0
assume by hypothesis that a foliage factor introduces a
path loss which is independent of distance. However, the
and aL refers to theexponentialattenuationfactorprolateral-wave mechanism easily explains the physical nature
duced by the presence of vegetation.
It is pertinent to study the behavior of I ELI and to com- of this effect since, as seen in Section 111, the vegetation
pare its functional variation withthat obtained in the avail- introduces losses only along the ray segnents T A and BR
able experimental data. The various properties
of the lateral which are independent of the range p. The range variable p
wave are thereforeexamined separately in the following sec- essentially appears in the ray segment AB which occurs in
the air medium and is therefore not affected by the foliage
tions.
conductivity.
A . Distance Loss
The variation of the lateral wave with distance is in the C. The Height Gain ESfect
The dependence of EL on the antenna height is given in
form I ELI ~ p - 2 . Such a distance dependence produces a
path loss which is greater than that of a geometric-optical (22) by exp ( - a d ) . Hence, one obtains enhanced field
variation of p-l, but the larger loss is expected since the lat- values if the antenna elevation is increased (i.e., s is deeral wave is essentially a diffracted field. The predicted p-2 creased). This behavior, already ascertained in the earliest
variation was recently verifiedbyextensive measurements experimental work[] and more recently reconfrmed,[?l is
which conclusively confirmed[]the p-2 dependence for both referred to as a height gain.
The lateral-wave model yields a simple explanation for
polarizations within the entire range of 1-100 MHz.
Perhaps the most interesting feature which emerges from this effect sincea heightincrease implies that the path length
the measurements reported by Jansky
and
is that of the lateral wave in the Zossy medium is reduced, i.e., the
the geometric P - - ~ loss was obtained up to distances of 20 segments T A and BR in Fig. 2 are shortened. Hence, the
miles, even though the intervening terrain was very irregular. total path loss is decreased and thus a corresponding path
In fact, the site that was used for obtaining data contained gain is obtained. Thisgain is characterized by a L which takes
many hills with peaks of the order of 1000 feet which pre- on the values given by the various curves in Fig. 7.
The exponential variation of the height-gain effect is in
cluded any direct, straight paths,such as the one shown for
the lateral ray AB in Fig. 2. Although the situation would agreement with the experimental results. Jansky andBaileyr21
seem to be adverse to a lateral-wave mechanism, the results concluded, on the basis of extensive measurements, that the
actually show that no significant deterioration occurs. Since height effect is either in an exponential(e..) or in a logarithmic (log a
s
)form.If, however, one excludes their data
the lateral wave propagates by skimming across the tree
tops, it is probably capable of following the forest contour whichrefer to verylow antenna heights, theexponential
even though the tree-top line is curved rather than straight. form yields a better fit. The departure of the low-height data
predicted by thelateral
Obviously, one would then need a radius of curvature which fromtheexponentialvariation

813

TAMIR : RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

i.25
I
I
I
1
I
I
I
1
I
wave is probably due to the effect of the ground proximity.
Experlmentalpolnts:
Since the latter effect is not accounted for in the present
model, one is justified in considering only those data which
refer to antennas that are sufficientlyelevated above the
ground and the correspondence between the theoretical and
measured variation is then very good.
As a further corroboration of the previous experimental
verification, it is noted that CYL in (23) is easily determined if
both and
u1 are known. In the case of the region where
the propagation measurements[2] were taken, it was found
at the higher frequencies (50-100 MHz) that 1.05<e1<1.15
and 0.05<u1<O. 15 mmho/m (Hagn and
AssumI
I
ing that these quantities are frequency independent, C Y L as
3
1
I
.7 1
2
4
7 10
20
40
70 100
200
L 0
obtained from (1) and (23) possesses values whichlie
f (MHz)anywhere between the two extreme curves shown in Fig. 8.
Fig. 8. Theoretical and experimental values of the lateralActual measured values of C Y Lare indicated in the figure by
wave attenuation U L versus frequency$
the letters V and H which denote vertical- and horizontalpolarization results, respectively, and the indicated points
represent smoothed-out values obtained from a large num- hand, represent theoretical predictions which are obtainedby
ber of similar measurements.[21 It is clearly seen that all of a set of completely different experimental measurements,
the measured attenuation points lie well within the range of namely those for the refractive index n. The lateral-wave
values predicted by the lateral-wave model. At frequencies model enters the picture only as the tool employed for corless than 12 MHz,the height gain was too small to be relating the two sets of data. The consistent quantitative
efficiently detected. Note also that the values of el = 1.1 and agreement obtained over the pertinent frequency range thus
ul= 10-* mho/m yield a curve, shown dashed in Fig. 8, emphasizes the plausibility of the lateral-wave model.
Another important aspect emphasized by Fig. 8 is that
which gives a very good fit up to 100 MHz. These values of
c1 and u1 are a good average of the various data obtained the height gain is critically dependent on the particular values
of both u1 and el, particularly at the higher frequencies.
by Hagn and Parker.
It is interesting to note that the comparison illustrated in Thus,the two extreme cases shown by the solid curves
Fig. 8 essentially relates two apparently independent sets yield attenuations which differ by 0.8 dB:m at 100 MHz.
of results: on the one hand, the experimental points H and Hence, an accurate determination of both u1 and el is imV were obtained by means of field-strength measurements portant for determining the total path loss in the case of
tall trees and low antennas (s large).
at various antenna heights; the solid curves, on the other
I

IEEE TRANSACITONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION, NOVEMBER 1967

814

D . Frequency Variation and Path Loss

The variation of the lateral-wave field EL with frequency
is found by examining only the vegetation factor F, of (24),
since all of the other quantitiesdo notdepend on frequency.
However, the resultfor EL was expressed in terms of a fixedcurrent moment I2 and it is therefore more appropriate to
consider power quantities and
derive the path loss Lb for the
present situation.
The power available from a small-dipole antenna located
in the forestis given by: L20l

P,

I EL l2Ao2 .~ 1
Re (n)

320&

(25)

where the real part of n is introduced to account for the

medium surrounding the antenna. Introducing relations(24)
and (22) into (25), one obtains:

The power radiated by the transmitting antenna is not so

easily obtained since it generally depends on the polarization and on its locationh-z below the tree tops.To simplify
the situation, a somewhat
coarse approximation is employed.
It is assumed that the radiated power is that which will be
produced by thecurrent element when it is placedin a
boundless forest medium with a refractive index n. The
transmitted power is then given by[201

Pt = 8079

(E)2

Re (n).

(27)

Relations (26) and (27) then yield a basic path loss

where the factor (3/2)2 accounts for the gain

of the two
antennas. If both.the receiving and the transmitting antennas are close to the tree tops, (28) reduces to:

f (MHz1

Fig. 9. Theoretical and experimental values of the basic path loss LbO
versus frequency f at a distance p = 1 km. The theoretically predicted values liewithin the shaded region.

indicated by the letters V or H for vertical or horizontal

polarizations, respectively. These results were takenfrom
Janskyand Baileyw and they represent mean values of
numerous measurements. Only the data pertinent to antennas located beneath the tree tops
wereused in Fig. 9
and the values account for the height-gain effect by incorporating the information supplied in Fig. 8.
An inspection of Fig. 9 shows that most of the experimental points lie within or close to the predicted shaded region. The only major exception is at 0.88 MHz but it is recalled that the value of Lao given by (29) may be erroneous
at the lower frequencies. With this reservation in mind, it
is then obvious that the agreement between the experimentally and the theoretically predicted data is quite good.
It is furthermore interestingto note that this agreement extends to frequencies as high as 250 MHz. It is, however,
doubtful whether the lossy slab model may be extended to
thesehigh frequencies since the vegetation is usually not
sufficiently dense to be averaged out and regarded as uniform in those cases.

E. Depolarization Effects
It is well known that the signal received by an antenna
where Lbodenotes the value of La at s=O. At the higher fre- located in a forestis considerably depolarized with reference
to the field radiated by a transmitter situated inside or outquencies, the frequency dependence of n may be neglected
so that LbOvaries asf4. Hence, the basic path loss Lbincreases side the forest. While this aspect could be discussed by a
strongly with frequency even if both antennas are close to statisticalapproach which accounts for terrainirregularthe tree tops. However, this situation may change if one of ities,[.il the depolarizing effect is actually predicted by the
the antennas (or both) are sufficiently aboce the vegetation lateral-wave model without necessitating any statistical concanopy. In that case, propagation occurs mostly by refrac- siderations.
To emphasize this feature, it is recalled that the received
tion or line of sight rather thanvia a lateralwave, but such a
field is not given by EL alone but this quantity needs to be
situation is not presently discussed.
To check theaforementioned results, relation (29) is multiplied by various factors to yield the actual field complotted in Fig. 9 for the same range of values of n that were ponents E,, E,,, and E+ of (1 1) through (13). Thus, if one
already considered in Fig. 8. For that range (1.05 <e1 < 1.I 5 uses a vertical antenna (-y=~/2),a horizontal component
and 0.05 < ~ < 0 . 1 5mmho/m), (29) predicts that LbOis given E, will be present in addition to the expected vertical comby points which lie within the region shown shaded in the ponent E,, and an analogous situation holds for a horizontal
figure. Experimental results are alsoshownand they are dipole (7 =0).

815

TAMIR: RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

b

The previously mentioned behavior isexplainedby noting

that polarization is retained only for geometric-optical contributions to the field. Thus, horizontal or vertical dipoles
in free space or above a smooth ground will produce the
familiar radiation patterns with well-defined polarization
directions. However, the lateral wave in the forestis a
dzffracted-field contribution and need not thereforeretain
the polarization of the antenna producing it.

F. The Onset of Fading

A good plausible experimental indication of the range peel
(where the lateral and sky waves are of equal magnitude) is
givenby the distance from the transmitter wherefading
becomes substantial. It is to be expected that thefading process is due to interference between the two waves; alternatively, fading may be produced by strong variations inherent to the sky wave at a distance where the lateral wave is
comparatively weak. In both cases, the range would correspond to the cross-hatched domains shown in Figs. 4 and 6.
Experimental fading data are provided by Herbstreit and
Crichlow['l who noted that fading sets in at distances between 2 and 5 km for frequencies in the 3-6 MHz range.
With average ionospheric conditions and expected values of
n (as discussed in Section IV) one would obtain a value of
pes=10 km. This value must be amended to account for a
separation value s=50 meters which occurred in those measurements.['] For 3-6 MHz, u l = 1 W and e l = 1.1, one obtains from (17) that the relative attenuation varies between
0.13 <CY,
<0.2 dB::'m. Hence, (17) yields a separation factor
2.1 < S < 3.2: and therefore the amended equality distance is
5.6<p,'<6.9 km. This calculated value of p ' 2 6 km compares well with the observed[']
range
of 2-5 km where
fading set in. The discrepancy may easily be explained by
ionospheric conditions which were more favorable and/or
by values of u1 which were larger than those assumed here.

to the
ionosphere
ionosphere

KI 7 I"

TJK

TCDE
TJFGH

fromthe

""Y\

AIR

PQR -?rimary roys

UVWR -Secondary rays

XYZQR

Tertiary
roys

-TCi
-Tcdi
-TAfgi

IBR
WWR

lYZBR

Fig. 10. Ray complex for the sky and lateral waves in the presence of
a reflecting ground plane. (a) Sky wave. (b) Lateral wave.

of the ray complex isthat one which exists whenthe ground

is absent; as verified by comparing Figs. 2 and 10. Within
the lossy (slab) medium,all the additional rays proceed along
paths which are longer than the path of the primary ray.
Hence, those additional rays suffer a stronger attenuation
and may therefore be neglected when deriving a first-order
result. Substantial errors willoccuronly in situations involving low antennas and/or low frequencies since then z,
zo<h<<Xo and several of the additional rays maypossess
amplitudes comparable to that of the primary ray.
The previous argument implies that the results obtained
by means of the half-spacemodel are quite general since
they hold well as long as the height 11 is not too small compared to the wavelength XO. This is confirmed by the experimental data which agree quite well with the theoretical results based on the simplified model, as discussed in the preceding sections. It is therefore worthwhile to obtain a quantitative estimate for the condition h<<ho which limits the
yalidityof the half-spacemodel. For this purpose, it is
noted that the measurements shown in Figs. 8 and 9 refer
VI. THEEFFECT
OF GROUND
PROXIMIIY
to a forest[']with an averageheight of about 10 meters.
When a ground plane is present, the forest appears as a Since the experimental values of LbO in Fig. 9 deviate appreslab rather than a half space and the ray picture for the sky ciably from the theoretical values only at frequencies below
and lateral wavesis then much more complex. Thus, the f = 3 MHz (Xo= 100 m), one finds therefore that the ground
sky wave needs to be constructed by means of additional effect is feeble if Xo/h< lOO:/lO= 10.
To assess the ground-proximity effect when Xo.:'h> 10, it
rays which are produced by reflections and refractions at
is observed that only a small number of rays need be acthe air-forest and forest-groundinterfaces,
as shownin
Fig. lqa). T h e diagram indicatesonly the first few rays counted for since the amplitudes of rays that undergo more
and neglects any rays which are due to more than one than a few reflections decrease to negligible amounts. The
complex ray picture then differs from the single-ray configu(single-hop) reflection at the ionospheric layer.
Although theydiffer
from ordinary optical rays, the ration of the half-space model only at the extremities of the
lateral waves in a lossy slab were shown["] to yield a ray communication path, i.e.,in the transmitter and receiver
complex which is similar in many respects to a geometric- vicinity. Hence, only local aspectsare affected by the ground
optical field. In fact, the rays within the slab are ordinary proximity if Xoilz>10 and these comprise the height-gain
geometric-optical contributions which happen to be emitted effect and depolarization effects. On theotherhand,the
and reflected at the critical anglee, of reflection given by (10). lorzg-range aspects will not be modified since the few conIt is only outside the slab that the lateral wave differs from tributing rays relate to values of p which are essentially the
same for all of them. Consequently, the field dependence on
ordinary rays and, as seen in Fig. 10, all of the refracted
portions combine there into the lateral component which p-! and the basic path loss L b variation of (ho/pp are not
affected by the ground proximity. For the same reason, the
skips across the interface.
For boththe lateral and sky waves, the first (primary) ray vegetation factor F,, remains independent of p. However, the

IEEE TRANSACTTONS ON ANTENNAS AND PROPAGATION,

NOVEMBER

816

magnitude of F,,, as well as the value of peq where the lateral

and sky waves are comparable, depend on a combination
of both local- and long-range factors so that these parameters are expected to be somewhat modified by the presence
of the ground plane when Xo/h> 10.

VII. CONCLUSION
Thestudy of radio waves in forest environments presented here has shown that propagation in the frequency
range of 1-100 MHz occurs primarily by means of a lateral
wave. The field at distances p > 1 km may then be adequately
described by a quasi-optical ray whose trajectory proceeds
along and just above the tree-top contour. By virtue of this
propagation mechanism, the lateral wave seems to be tied
to the tree-top line and is therefore capable of following its
contour even if the vegetation extends over a terrain with
certain amounts of curvature due to hills or other obstructions. A sky wave due t o reflection from the ionosophere
may also be present, but it will be important only at large
distances and low frequencies (roughly, p> 10 km and
f< 10 MHz).
The lateral waveis a diffracted field component which
varies with distances asand
therefore attenuates more
rapidly in comparison with the p-l dependence of a geometric-optical contribution.Ontheotherhand,thelateral
wave travels in the Iossless air medium, and therefore it does
not undergo the exponential decay which affects a geometricoptical ray that travels through the lossy vegetation. In addition to providing a simple explanation of the observed p-2
variation of the fieldsin forest environments, thelateral
wave variety affords a straightforward and consistent interpretation of many other propagation aspects such as the
height-gain effect, the vegetation factor, depolarization
effects, andthe path-loss variation. These features were
found to be strongly dependent on the equivalent refractive
index n describing the vegetation medium and the separation
distance s consisting of the combined depths of the (transmitting and receiving) antennas below the tree-tops. In terms
of the field associated with the lateral wave, one finds that
the height-gain effect, the vegetation factor, and the basic
path loss are all expressible by means of simple relations
which show that transmission losses increase with both s
and In Hence, the separation s of the antennaswith respect
to the tree-top contour turns out to be of major importance,
whereas the antenna height above ground plays only a minor
role in most cases. The increase of the transmission losses
with the refractive index n is in agreement with physical intuition since denser forests correspond to larger values of nl .
All of the theoretical considerations and results were compared quantitatively with available experimental data and
good overall agreement was obtained. This agreement is
found to be remarkable in view of the fact that the model
chosen to characterize the forest is a particularly simple one.
The utility of this model is enhanced by the fact that, in addition to its convenient simplicity, it also takes appropriate
account of the intrinsic properties of the forest medium in

I.

1967

such a manner as to provide a consistent physical description, as well as an excellent first-order estimate, of most of
the previously observed propagation characteristics.
APPENDIX
EVALUATION
OF NUMERICAL
DISTANCE^

The description of the field in terms of the various wave

types discussed in Section I11 is obtained[=]~ [ ~ by
3 1 an asymptotic evaluation of integrals which express the rigoroussolution for the assumed dipole excitation. The resolution of the
total field into the various geometric-optical contributions
and the lateral wave holds only if certain parameters are
large in the integrands. When that is not the case, the different contributions are not distinct but they combine into a
field which may not resemble any of the wave varieties that
were assumed here.
It is therefore pertinent to examine the aforementioned
restrictions in order to establish the ranges wherein the present results are valid. A first condition is given (Brekhovskikh, eq. 20.10[El) by

where D, is termed the pole numerical distance.

Condition (30) is essentially a restriction on p since this
parameter must be larger thana certain minimum distance. To obtain an estimate for this minimum, it is convenient to examine the value of p which yields a pole numerical distance D, equal to unity. If this minimum value of p
is denoted by d,, one has from (30) that

IZI

is monoClearly, d , increases with wavelengthsince I

tonically increasing with ho, assuming u1 fixed. Hence, d , is
larger at the lower frequencies. In those cases, I is well
approximated by its imaginary part alone, so that

which,in
yields

viewof

u l < 10-3 mho/m and

.4

lo<
300 meters,

GO
d p < - X lW3 X 9 X lo4 = 1720met,ers.

(33)

iT

Hence, the minimum range p= 1 km assumed throughout

this work is quite reasonable since d, is larger (by less than
twice) only in the worst possible case. On the other hand,
d , decreases rapidly with frequency: it is less than 450
meters at 2 MHz, and about 1.5 meters at 100 MHz.
A second restriction on the range p is provided by the requirement that the expressions (1 1) through (14) for the
lateral wave be sufficiently accurate. Their validity depends
on the location of a branch point which occurs in the inte-

817

TAMIR: RADIO-WAVE PROPAGATION

grand expressing the rigorous field solution. The appropriate condition is then given (Brekhovskikh, eq. 2 2 . 1 2 9 by

I v2konp

sin 3 (e, - n/2) 1 2 >> I,

(34)

where Oc is the critical angle of reflection. Using (1 1) one has

2

-(1

,+ +
I

discussions. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the help

given by Capt. D. Dence, also at Fort Monmouth, for his
critical appraisal and careful editing of the manuscript, and
for the many improvements and correctionswhich were suggested by him. Special thanks are due to G. H. Hagn, Stanford Research Institute, and to Dr. D. L. Sachs, Defence
Research Corp., for helpful discussions and for supplying
pertinent data. The comments of Dr. C. R. Burrows on his
reading of the manuscript are greatly appreciated.

REFERENCES

- 1

\/,/122

dnz - 1

v-

J. W . Herbstreit and W. Q. Crichlow, Measurement of the

attenuation of radio signals by jungles, J . Research NBS (Radio Sci.);
VOI. 68D, pp. 903-906, August 1964.
Tropical propagation research, Jansky and Bailey Research
Noting that [ (~9-1)1/2/~1is less than unity and is usually andP IEngrg.
Dept., Atlantic Research Corp., Alexandria, Va., Semiquite small, one may use the binomial expansion and retain Ann. Rept. 7, July-December 1965.
G. H. Hagn, G. E. Barker, H. W. Parker, J. D. Hice, and W. A.
first nonvanishing terms only. One then obtains
Ray, Preliminary results of full-scale pattern measurements of simple
VHF antennas in a eucalyptus grove, Stanford Research Institute,
Menlo Park, Calif., Special Tech. Rept. 19, January 1966.
L41 J. J. Egli, Radio propagation above 40 %IC over irregular terrain, Proc. IRE, vol. 45, pp. 13831391, October 1957.
H. T. Head, The influence of trees on television field strengths
lntroducing result (35) into (34), one gets a branch numer- at ultra-high frequencies, Proc. IRE, vol. 48, pp. 1016-1020, June
ical distance D bwhich needs to satisfy
1960.
161 C. R. Burrows, Ultra-short-wave propagation in the jungle,
k o p n2 - 1
IEEE Trans. Antennas and Propqation, vol. AP-14, pp. 386-388, May
>> 1.
1966.
171 D. J. Pounds and A. H. LaGrone, Considering forest vegetation as an imperfect dielectric slab, Electric Engrg. Research Lab.,
Taking db as the distance p where Db= 1, one has that
University of Texas, Austin, Rept. 6-53, May 1963.
La] B.A. Lippman, The jungle as a communication network,
Defense Research Corp., Santa Barbara, Calif., Memo. IMR-168/1,
August 1965.
[Ql J. Taylor, A note on the computed radiation patterns of dipole
antennas in dense vegetation, Stanford Research Institute, Special
It is easy to verify that dbincreases with X. but decreases with Tech. Rept. 16, February 1966.
[lo] D. L. Sachs and P. J. Wyatt, A conducting-slab model for
E] and ul. One may therefore take n -ul and use approxielectromagnetic propagation within a jungle medium,Defense Remation (2) for the lower frequencies to obtain
search Corp., Tech. Memo. 376, and Internal Memo. IMR-471, 1966.
1111 G. H. Hagn and H. W . Parker, Feasibility study of the use 0
open-wire transmission lines, capacitors and cavities to measure the
electrical properties of vegetation, Stanford Research Institute,
Special Tech. Rept. 13, August 1966.
P I L. M. Brekhovskikh, Wasesin Layered Media. New York:
Consequently, the strongest requirement for Dbis also at Academic Press, 1960, ch. IV; pp. 234-324.
the lower frequencies but is less stringent than that for D,
P P I J. R. Wait, Electromagnetic Waoes in StratifiedMedia.
New
discussed previously. It then turns out,however, that restric- York: Pergamon, 1962, ch. 11, pp. 8-63.
1141 A. Banos, Jr., Dipole Radiation in the Presence of a Conducting
tion (36) is stronger than(31) at the higher frequencies. Thus, Half-Space. New York: Pergamon, 1966, ch. 7, pp. 195-235.
at 100 MHz, db equals about 94 meters in the worst case
P4 D. Staiman and T. Tamir, The nature and optimization of the
ground (lateral) waveexcited by submerged antennas, Proc. ZEE
(e1= 1.01 and ul= 10-5 mho/m).
(London), vol.113, pp. 1299-1310, August 1966.
In conclusion, the minimum range of 1 km for p is quite
[I61 R. K. Moore and 1%.
E. Blair, Dipole radiation in a conductadequate, except possibly at the lowest frequencies and the ing half-space, J. Research XBS (Radio Sci.), vol. 65D, pp. 547-563,
largest values of ul. On the other hand, the minimum range November-December 1961.
K. Bullington, Radio propagation fundamentals, Bel[ Sys.
maybereduced
to about 100 meters for the more often- Tech. J., vol. 36, pp. 593-626,May 1957; also, Arttema E/zgineering
encountered values of 11 (eI=l.1 and ul=lW4 mho/m), pro- Handbook, H. Jasik, Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961, ch. 33.
PSI Internatl Telephone and Telegraph Corp., Reference Datu for
vided other near-field components (such as surface waves)
Radio Engineers. New York: Stratford Press, 1963, ch. 24.
are negligible.
P I K. Davis, Ionospheric Radio Propagation. Washington, D. C . :
U. S. Gov. Printing Office, 3965.
[?I H. Jasik, Antenna Engineeriq Harzdbook. New York: McGrawACKNOWLEDGMENT
Hill, 1961, ch. 2, pp. 2.1-2.51.
P I T. Tamir and L. B. Felsen, On lateral waves in s h b configuraThe author wishes to thank Dr. H. S . Bennett and R. A.
tions and their relation to other wave types, IEEE Trans. Aiztennas
Kulinyi, both at U. S. Army Electronics Command, Fort urtd Propagatiorz, vol. AP-13, pp. 410-422,- May 1965.
Monmouth, N. J., for their support and for many interesting
[=I G. H. Hagn and H. W . Parker, private communication.

/1

I I

? 1.