HF propagation via the ionosphere over Africa. Science or art?

Complete text of publication follows. The development of HF propagation in Africa is still of concern and further studies need to be carried out to ensure the continued improvement of HF communication over Africa. This paper concentrate on the accuracy of HF propagation prediction over Africa. The paper will present the validation of HF propagation conditions using two models : Ionospheric Communication Enhanced Profile Analysis and Circuit (ICEPAC) and Advanced Stand Alone Prediction Systems (ASAPS). The real-time data is obtained from monitoring stations of the international beacon project. The results will show the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for different paths. The potential of the two models as compared to real-time data in terms of the propagation condition prediction is illustrated. An attempt to draw conclusions for future improvement of HF propagation models is also presented.