Publication Date:
2024-01-19
Description:
On 25 May 1928 the airship “Dirigibile Italia” during its return trip to the base in NyAlesund,
after overflying the North Pole, shipwrecked on the ice‐pack in a region at about 400 km northeast of
Svalbard Islands. Survivors, by using a portable high frequency (HF) radio transmitter, tried unsuccessfully
to send SOS messages and to establish a radio link with the ship “Città di Milano” of the Italian Navy,
closely anchored at King's Bay. Only after 9 days of repeated radio‐distress transmissions, a Russian radio
amateur close to the town of Arkhangelsk about 1,900 km away was able to receive the messages launched
by the survivors and raise the alarm. This paper aims at giving a retrospective analysis of the ionospheric and
geomagnetic conditions of that epoch in order to explain the HF radio communications problems
encountered by the survivors. The International Reference Ionosphere model has been applied, and early
geomagnetic measurements have been evaluated, to come up with theories explaining the events. We assert
the HF transmission difficulties were associated with the “radio silent” or “dead zones” associated with
F‐region propagation. These may have been exacerbated by solar and geomagnetically disturbed conditions
of the days immediately following the airship wreck.
Description:
Published
Description:
e2020SW00245
Description:
1A. Geomagnetismo e Paleomagnetismo
Description:
2A. Fisica dell'alta atmosfera
Description:
5A. Ricerche polari e paleoclima
Description:
JCR Journal
Repository Name:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Type:
article
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