Skip to Main Content This communication reports the first ever
use of the over ocean evaporation duct to implement a high-
capacity radio link from the Australian mainland to the Great
Barrier Reef (GBR), North Queensland, Australia. Conventional
long-distance radio communication techniques such as high-
frequency (HF) radio, satellite, or cell phone are either too
slow or too expensive to operate continuously in this situation.
A microwave radio link overcomes these problems but would
generally not be viable due to the limited range possible with a
standard line-of-sight microwave link. This communication shows
that by properly choosing the antenna height and operating
frequency though, it is possible to trap signals in the ocean
evaporation duct and substantially extend the propagation range.
A 78-km link that operates at a frequency of 10.6 GHz and
provides a data rate of 10 Mb/s has been established to verify
the technique. The communication also provides preliminary
results of the measured performance of t