User:Spwalto/sandbox

Ground waves  are a form of radio propagation where the radio waves us the earth's surface to travel over and are ideal for short distance propagation during the day. Therefore they are generally used to for local radio communications. Ground wave propagation important when propagating, Very Low Frequency (VLF), Low Frequency (LF) and Medium Frequency (MF) radio waves because these frequencies travel through the earth and the ionosphere. The VLF, LF and MF frequencies propagate along the Earth's surface because the wave front has a low magnitude/force and one of the most significant factor in determining the level of magnitude is the frequency rate. If the frequency increases, then the loss of attenuation rises as well so a signal would not be able to propagate over ground waves if they have a high frequency (HF) rate.

Characteristics
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Advantages:

Advantages of Ground Wave propagation are that they are not affected by interference, they can travel longer distances and they are vertically polarized. Interference usually occurs from atmospheric noise so the lower frequency ground waves would not be affected and because of this lack of interference, they are able to travel longer distances. However, as with longer distances comes higher chances of the path being lost so it would still be a good idea to find the optimal distance between the transmitter and receiver. The vertical polarization of the ground waves is good because they prevent short circuit caused by an electric field component.

Disadvantages:

Disadvantages of Ground Wave propagation is the polarization can still be affected and that the distance between a transmitter and receiver can't be too large. Having the polarization still be affected is a disadvantage because if it were to be affected, then the electric field components would be short circuited with the ground. This is not good because the low frequency signals would be lost since they are propagating across the Earth's surface. Having a large distance between the transmitter and receiver will weaken signal strength due to the ground and atmospheric absorption so communication between the two would not be possible. A way to fix this would be to use repeaters between the transmitter and receiver, however, this would just increase the time and cost of the system.

Applications
Ground Wave propagation can be used for local radio communcation such as AM, FM and TV broadcasting.

References and Links
https://www.rfwireless-world.com/Terminology/Advantages-and-Disadvantages-of-Ground-wave-and-Sky-wave.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation