FCC Technician Exam Question Of The Day (T3A09)

Q) Which of the following is a common effect of “skip” reflections between the Earth and the ionosphere?

A) The polarization of the original signal is randomized


NJ2X Notes:
Antenna polarization is very important for line-of-sight VHF and UHF communications since a mismatch between the transmitter antenna polarization and the receiver antenna polarization results in significant signal loss.

Signal polarization on HF and 6M typically involve reflecting radio waves off the ionosphere or earth.  These reflections tend to randomly change the polarization.  The result is that differences between transmitting antenna polarization and receiving antenna polarization matter much less than on VHF and UHF line-of-sight communication.


This question is from the FCC Element 2 Technician Class Question Pool
Effective July 1, 2010 for examinations and is valid until June 30, 2014