Does barometric pressure have any effect on radio? In terms of DX or Skip?
Barometric Pressure
- Thread starter Dispatrick
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Perhaps not directly, but high pressure can help set the stage for tropospheric ducting.
From Wikipedia:
>>Tropospheric ducting is a type of radio propagation that tends to happen during periods of stable, anticyclonic weather. In this propagation method, when the signal encounters a rise in temperature in the atmosphere instead of the normal decrease (known as a temperature inversion), the higher refractive index of the atmosphere there will cause the signal to be bent. Tropospheric ducting affects all frequencies, and signals enhanced this way tend to travel up to 800 miles (1,300 km) (though some people have received "tropo" beyond 1,000 miles / 1,600 km), while with tropospheric-bending, stable signals with good signal strength from 500+ miles (800+ km) away are not common when the refractive index of the atmosphere is fairly high.<<
I don't believe barometric pressure affects the ionosphere however, which is the usual source of 'skip' at shortwave frequencies. Ducting is more a bending of the signals around the earths curvature as I understand it, as opposed to reflection off the ionosphere in the case of skip.
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