The first radio links, wireless telegraphy, were established at the
beginnings of the twentieth century by Marconi, who drew upon the theory
developed by Maxwell and upon the experimental researches conducted by
Hertz. In France, such renown scientists, mathematicians, physicists and
experimenters as Poincaré, Blondel and the Général Ferrié played a
crucial role in the development of radiocommunications, more
particularly through theoretical and experimental researches which
contributed to a better understanding of the different propagation
media. Following the Second World War, the researchers and engineers of
the newly created Centre National d'Etudes des Télécommunications
(CNET), among whom may be mentioned Jean Voge, François du Castel, André
Spizzichino or Lucien Boithias, made decisive contributions to the
understanding of the propagation of radio waves, in particular in the
context of their application to telecommunications. Although the CNET
has now become France Telecom Recherche & Développement, the present
book is in keeping with this approach, which has been going on for more
than half a century. By providing the reader with some of the most
recent researches in this field, Hervé Sizun offers here an essential
complement to the work by Lucien Boithias Radiowave Propagation, first
published in 1983 in the Collection Technique et Scientifique des
Télécommunications, and published in an English version in 1987 by
McGraw- Hill.