If you think the band conditions are horrible on Earth, it could be worse. Earlier this year, I gave a presentation to my club, the Rochester Amateur Radio Association, about radio propagation on Mars. My interest in it started after the discovery that Mars has 2 different speeds of sound. NASA had a book on Martian propagation that I bought and read. It was a challenge, but a fun one that turned into a brief presentation and this short video. During my reading and research on Mars, it gave me a deeper appreciation and better understanding of radio propagation on Earth.
This does make me want to re-watch some movies and shows, like Interstellar, The Martian, and The Expanse, to pay closer attention to their communications. I don't know that I've watched those since becoming a ham.
I'm shocked! "Mars does not presently have a global magnetic field but had one early in its life, similar to that of Earth. However, Mars does have very strong crustal magnetic fields, more than 30 times stronger than those of Earth." (Mars Global Surveyor Magnetic Field Investigation (nasa.gov)) Though you had to have a planetary magnetic field to have an ionosphere. Truns out, Mars does have (kinds) a ionosphere. (Microsoft Word - marsionodecsurv020pgw.doc (nasa.gov)) Learn something new daily. I just did.
