Electromagnetic messaging from aircraft
I get the impression that some commentators here are making the assumption that HF/VHF/UHF radio signals from AF447 would have been equivalent to that of trailing a broadband internet cable behind the aircraft.
Radio amateurs would love to have an antenna 40,000 feet up in the air but realize that in the midst of an electromagnetic storm, signals even 500 metres away might be unintelligible to a receiver due to noise, propagation anomalies and polarization rotations regardless of error correction protocols even if one is dumping the full American 1.5 kW into the ether.
Does anyone know if the QRN at the critical moments of the AF447 flight obliterated RF communications or whether the sequence of the ACARS messages was affected by poor reception?
Last edited by kilomikedelta; 25th Apr 2011 at 01:23.
Reason: clarification