Spring and summer best for wireless

Leicester, UK - Late afternoons and early evenings in spring and summer are the times when mobile signals and radio waves are ‘super strength' – allowing them to be clearer and travel greater distances, potentially interfering with other systems, a UK research study has found.

The effect of the weather on the signal strength of radio waves travelling over the sea was identified by Salil Gunashekar as part of his doctoral studies at the University of Leicester’s Department of Engineering. The results, he believes, have implications for the design of cellular telephone networks operating in marine  and other maritime communication systems.

“In today's world, radio waves are an indispensable means of communicating information 'without wires' from one place to another, be it for radio broadcasts or cell phones, television transmissions or airport radars," said now a post-doctoral research associate in the Radio Systems Research Group.

“When radio waves travel for long distances over the sea their strength can be affected by the weather. The constantly changing weather conditions over the sea mean that marine and coastal environments, in particular, are prone to unusual atmospheric phenomena that enable radio waves to travel longer distances and have higher strengths than expected.”

The two-year study focused on the relationship between over-sea propagation mechanisms and signal strength distribution patterns and weather conditions. The work was centred on three long-range radio paths operating at the 2-Gigahertz UHF frequency used by many mobile phones.

“Interestingly, signal strength enhancements have been observed on all three radio paths, predominantly in the late afternoon and evening periods, in the spring and summer months,"  said Gunashekar. "During these periods, which occur only approximately 5-10% of the time, the influence of higher-altitude radio wave ‘trapping’ structures has been verified.”

Gunashekar will present the key findings of his PhD research on 4 June, in the fourth of the series of doctoral inaugural lectures.