The Rebirth of HF

High frequency (HF) or “shortwave” communications were once the primary means of global connectivity, but over the last three decades this role has largely been taken over by both terrestrial Internet and satellites. However, recent improvements in our understanding of propagation as well as technological advancements have led to a “rebirth” of HF as a viable alternative for worldwide, mission-critical connectivity. This webinar begins by introducing the fundamental concepts behind the different modes of HF propagation, with particular emphasis on ionospheric or “sky wave” propagation, and explains how modern research enables more reliable and efficient use of this highly variable environment. This introduction is then followed by technical discussion of new developments, such as wideband HF, which enable the higher throughput necessary to make HF a practical means of modern, global communications. The webinar will then conclude with a live question-and-answer session.

Presenter Bio:

Paul Denisowski is a Product Management Engineer at Rohde & Schwarz North America, where he specializes in radiomonitoring, radiolocation (direction finding), and interference hunting solutions, as well as general purpose test and measurement instrumentation. A frequent author and presenter on a wide variety of topics, he has over 20 years of field application experience, including extensive work in direction finding and interference hunting for commercial and military/government customers. Paul previously held field and research positions with HP/Agilent, Fujitsu, Alcatel, and Nortel, and has both a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University as well as a Master’s degree in Germanic Languages from UNC-Chapel Hill. He was also a visiting lecturer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology under a joint grant from the US National Science Foundation and the Japanese Ministry of Education and has been an active amateur radio operator (KO4LZ) for almost three decades.