An empirical study of HF noise near Adelaide Australia

Despite over 100 years of research, there is still much to learn about HF radio-communications. One aspect is HF noise. Researchers often model noise as a Gaussian distribution. In some cases this assumption is valid, in other cases the assumption is made for convenience. Regardless, literature describing the probability density function (PDF) of HF noise does not abound. This work addresses the PDF of HF noise. It studies the HF band near Adelaide, South Australia during February 2005 and April-May 2006. The results clearly demonstrate the man-made noise and natural noise components of HF noise. A suitable model for man-made noise is the Gaussian distribution, whereas natural HF noise is better modelled with a Bi-Kappa distribution.