Improve the VHF coverage for air/ground communications with aircraft.

[guettafor]

Hi,
Hope I've chosen the right forum for my question.
I'm an Atsep trainee, And i would love to ask experts here about the ways to improve the VHF coverage over the oceanic part of the FIR ..
As you may know, VHF is "straight line" transmission and is therefore limited in range by the horizon. That is not a problem for as now for most populated parts of the FIR, but for operations in some oceanic airspace, you might be out of range of VHF stations.
For now, we succeeded covering 90% of the Oceanic part of our FIR for flight levels above FL300, where we have had less coverage by implementing new VHF stations and updating old ones (make antenna directional, increase power, up to 200w ...)
But we still have problems for FL under FL300, because of VHF straight line transmission and curvature of the earth.
What do you suggest as a solution to ensure the VHF coverage for under FL300, and also if there are any other solutions for above FL300.

Hope I explained the problem well.

Thanks and Kind regards,
Abder

[jmmoric]

Working in the northern hemisphere of the Atlantic region, if you're unable to place VHF trancievers to cover the area, I guess HF is the old, trusted, and partly reliable solution.

I worked HF for a decade, and really love that old piece of a communication system.

Problem was the amount of traffic making the frequencies overloaded, hence the many HF families over the NAT region, and the implementation of datalink.

[EastofKoksy]

Perhaps a VHF relay station located in Madeira or the Canary Islands would help.

[hammerthrower]

Datalink *cough* :D:D:ugh:

[SawMan]

Ham Radio nut here, not ATC. Satellites are the obvious answer, but Hams use "Repeaters" (hears on one freq, simultaneously rebroadcasts it on another where all listen) which could be done with a few ships along the routes. Cheap and low-tech but relaible and easily workable.

[confused atco]

For anything beyond line of sight on the ocean you have really 2 options.

HF
Satellite Data-Link.