Hi Eddy, Don't get your hopes up. For one thing, aluminum oxide is a very good insulator - its conductivity is around 10 to the 14th ohm.cm - although it has a high dielectric constant (around 9 to 11, depending on crystal orientation). A cloud of this could affect radio waves, but I wouldn't want to predict the effect. But more importantly, 100 km is too low to provide much help to us Topbanders. This is far below the E and F layers of the ionosphere that we rely on for DX.
But I imagine astronomers, professional and amateur, will be up in arms about this idea. 73, Bert On 10/03/2012 12:01 PM, Eddy Swynar wrote: > Hi All, > > An on-line friend recently sent me this timely link re. an upcoming NASA > experiment that involves the releasing of an aluminum oxide "cloud" some 60 > miles above earth: > > http://www.aopa.org/aircraft/articles/2012/120308nasa-rockets-spread-ghostly-glow.html?WT.mc_id=120309epilot&WT.mc_sect=gan > > I wonder if the conductivity (if any) of this man-made cloud will have any > effect upon radio propagation...? (Heaven only knows that the propagation on > Topband this season has been far from stellar---"any and all assistance > appreciated", Hi). > > This could be of great benefit to VHF DX'ers, perhaps, if not us denizens of > the nether-regions of the frequency spectrum... > > ~73~ de Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ > _______________________________________________ > UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK _______________________________________________ UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK
