Testing a car aerial

That's because the Heaviside Layer wobbled around a lot as a result of being so unbalanced that parts of it receded and approached the earth fast enough to cause the doppler effect. Incidentally it was called the Heaviside Layer because it was the heavy side that was first discovered. It was only when this was seen to wobble around so much that astronomers realised that the bit they observed must be part of a bigger whole that had a light side.

The doppler effects caused by the wobble can be so extreme that medium and short wave stations can move as much as 100kHz, causing French resistance workers during World war II to hear Germany Calling when they thought they were listening to the BBC.

The man who discovered the Heaviside Layer, Oliver Flangebottom of Batley, West Yorks, later went on tour giving astronomy lectures, when he changed his name to Heaviside as a sales gimmick.

In case anyone doubts me on this I got it all from Tit Bits and Revallie.

Bill

rather at odds with wikipedia

Wikipaedia is bollocks. The best source of accurate scientific information is my late grandma's stash of 1960s Tit Bits and Revallies.

Bill

It was Tit-Bits in the 60's, they took out the hyphen in 1973. The other paper was called Reveille.