Dear Editor,
If Leon Suseran (SN March 19, 2012) lives 70 miles away from a transmitting station in Georgetown, he would be well over a mile in depth below and out of the reach of its FM signals, because such very high frequencies are scarcely reflected by the Earth’s ionosphere, except sometimes during a solar (coronal mass ejection) flare. FM signals, unlike shortwave and AM, mostly pass straight through the atmosphere into outer space with only slight bending along the curvature of the Earth.
The range of reception is dependent on the height of the transmitting tower. So either the transmitting tower is over a mile high, or there are relay stations with appropriately high towers. Of course, the further away the receiver, the more powerful must be the transmitter.
Satellite relays would solve the problems of height and power (when one bears in mind that the Voyager spacecraft presently at the edge of the solar system is transmitting to Earth with only 23 watts, although at 8 GHz). But can we afford it? We can’t even afford to run a Physics degree programme at UG. When last I checked there was only one (doubtless overworked) physicist at the Tain Campus from almost the last batch trained at UG who I am sure could have advised Mr. Suseran that there is no device that can pick up NCN FM signals at his location without some extra sunspot activity.
And could NCN please inform the public, who funds their operations and who they are supposed to serve, of the present location and status of the transmitting station that used to be at Sparendaam?
Yours faithfully,
Alfred Bhulai
