23/05/2025
เพราะอย่างงี้หรือเปล่าที่ทำให้ข่วงรอยต่อกลางวันกลางคืนถึงส่งคลื่นได้ดี
Exploring the Ionosphere: Layer by Layer, Night to Day
Have you ever wondered how radio signals can travel such long distances, bouncing off invisible layers high above the Earth? What you’re looking at in this image is the ionosphere — a region of our atmosphere that’s full of charged particles, and it’s incredibly important for radio communication.
The ionosphere isn’t just one big layer — it’s made up of several sub-layers, each at a different altitude, and they change depending on whether it’s day or night. Let’s take a quick tour from bottom to top.
Starting from about 80 km above Earth, we enter the D layer. This layer only exists during the day, because it forms when sunlight ionizes the atmosphere. But here’s the catch: it actually absorbs radio waves, especially lower-frequency ones, which makes daytime communication on those bands harder.
Next up, around 110 km, is the E layer. Like the D layer, it’s stronger during the day and weakens at night. This layer can reflect medium-frequency radio waves, which makes it useful for certain types of communication — but only over shorter distances.
Moving higher, we reach the F layer, which is where things get really interesting. During the day, it splits into two parts:
The F1 layer, around 200 km, and
The F2 layer, up at about 300 km.
The F2 layer is the most important for long-distance HF (high frequency) communication because it remains ionized even at night, unlike the other layers. That’s why ham radio operators can often reach stations halfway around the world — even after sunset.
At night, the F1 and F2 layers merge into a single F layer, as shown on the left side of the image. This happens because there’s no sunlight to keep the F1 layer separate, and ionization decreases overall — but the F layer still hangs on, which is great news for night-time DXing (long-distance radio contacts).
So, whether it’s day or night, the ionosphere is always shifting — and understanding its behavior is key to mastering radio communication. Keep this in mind next time you’re tuning across the bands!
73 from PY6CJ - João Grisi