Two-way mobile communications via meteor

Abstract

Loran-C and meteor burst communications have been combined to build a system that provides automatic vehicle location and two-way communications in the continental United States. The system takes advantage of the Loran-C terrestrial coverage and the phenomenon of radiowave reflection from the meteor region of the Earth's atmosphere. The radio connection between base stations and remote communication units is a random process that provides a natural contention management scheme and permits hundreds of thousands of vehicles to communicate over the same radio frequencies. The nationwide system is designed for an average message delivery time of less than ten minutes. A pilot program conducted with the largest truckload carrier in the United States showed 20-min average message delivery times and 8-min average wait interval for radio connections with operational trucks.<>