EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION USING THE METEOR BURST CHANNEL

THE FREQUENCY SPECTRUM THROUGHOUT THE WORLD IS EXTREMELY CONGESTED AND AN URGENT NEED FOR AN ALTERNATE MEANS OF COMMUNICATIONS EXISTS FOR PRESENT AND FUTURE SOCIETIES. THEMETEOR BURST CHANNEL (MBC) REPRESENTS SUCH AN ALTERNATE MODEOF COMMUNICATION. LOCATED BETWEEN 40 - 80 MHZ, THE METEOR BURST CHANNEL IS ONLY RECENTLY BEING CONSIDERED FOR USE BY INDUSTRY AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. THE CHANNEL CAN BE CHARACTERIZED AS BEING PRESENT IN RANDOM TIME INTERVALS WHICH OCCUR IN A POISSON MANNER. WHEN PRESENT, IT HAS A WIDE BANDWIDTH AND A SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO (SNR) CHARACTERISTIC WHICH DECREASES EXPONENTIALLY WITH TIME. THIS STUDY IS TO SHOW THE FEASIBILITY OF EFFICIENTLY COMMUNICATING USING THE MBC. THE USE OF A FEEDBACK CHANNEL HAVING A SNR COMPARABLE TO THAT OF THE FORWARD CHANNEL IS EMPLOYED. THE RESEARCHERS INTEND TO PROVE THAT THE CHANNEL CAPACITY CAN BE INCREASED BY A FACTOR OF 5 TO 10 OVER PRESENTLY AVAILABLE SYSTEMS THROUGH THE USE OF VARIABLE BIT RATE TRANSMISSION, AND THE ERROR IN AN ACCEPTED MESSAGE CAN BE REDUCED BY SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE BY USING THE RETRANSMISSION PRINCIPLE (A FORM OF "INFORMATION FEEDBACK").THE EFFECT OF PACKET SIZE ON THROUGHPUT AND ERROR RATE WILL ALSO BE STUDIED.