Scintillation, for our purposes, is similar to when you see a mirage on a highway in front of you, usually on a hot day, and not uncommon across deserts. The wavering of the light waves is the same thing that happens to radio signals, more-or-less.
I once had a canopy, with dish mounted on a high roof shooting across a white flat roof. After the install, the customer would drop lots of packets. We moved it 4 feet higher to change the angle of incidence and it stayed stable. That's one reason all of this seems black magic at times. Regarding the tropo propagation, as a ham radio operator, at times the uhf and vhf bands would open from SW FL all the way across the Gulf of Mexico and we could talk to hams in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and others at times. Many times this went on for hours and sometimes days. At 10:19 AM 8/8/2009, you wrote: >Which definition of scintillation applies? > * Scintillation or twinkling are generic terms for rapid >variations in apparent brightness or color of a distant luminous >object viewed through the atmosphere. > en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scintillation_(astronomy) > * scintillate - twinkle: emit or reflect light in a flickering >manner; "Does a constellation twinkle more brightly than a single >star?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/