HF ATMOSPHERIC NOISE-LEVELS IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

Since the 1970's there has been some doubt as to the accuracy of the CCIR Report 322 [1] atmospheric noise predictions in the Canadian Arctic. The only Arctic station used in the original (1963) development of these predictions was Thule, and its data were always contaminated by significant levels of local man-made noise. The 1988 revision of CCIR Report 322 excluded the Thule data and included data from the former Soviet Union. In this study, measurements were made at Nanisivik, North West Territories (NWT) during two summers, at two time periods (0800-1200 Local Standard Time (LST) and 2000-2400 LST) from 3 to 20 MHz. The results presented in this paper show that the measured levels are about 10 dB below the 1988 revised CCIR model predictions, which have been adopted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 1990 [2].