A simple partitioned Markov chain model is proposed for characterization of the HF channel. It is demonstrated that from the model, the error-burst distribution can be derived with good agreement with simulation results. In this paper the transition probability matrix

of the model is raised to the

th power P
N. P
Nis used to represent the channel after interleaving of degree

. The error-burst distribution after interleaving is derived from P
N. The results show again that there is good agreement between calculated and simulated error-burst distribution. It is concluded that the model can be employed to study the effect of interleaving on burst-error channels.