Measurements of amplitude probability distributions and power of automobile ignition noise at HF

Measurements of the amplitude probability distribution (APD) of the envelope and measurements of other parameters of automobile ignition noise were made at frequencies between 24 and 30 MHz. The measurements were conducted at a quiet site where several single stationary vehicles were operated at engine speeds corresponding to idle and cruise. Measurements were also made at two distances near a freeway, for light traffic (approximately 20 vehicles per min) and for heavy traffic (approximately 45 vehicles per min). The principal instrumentation consisted of several phase-stable receivers with coherent quadrature detectors whose outputs were digitized at a rate of 200 samples per quadrature component per second and recorded on magnetic tape for computer processing. About 10 min of data (about 120 000 samples) were obtained during each measurement. The computer plotted the APD on a Rayleigh scale in dB relative to thermal noise and calculated the mean noise power available at the antenna terminals (related by a constant to the noise factor F
a
) and V
d
--the ratio in dB of rms to average voltage. The average power of the ignition noise increases with engine r/min and V
d
usually decreases. Near a freeway, most of the noise is contributed by a small number of very noisy vehicles. The APD's for various situations are strikingly similar; all show that most of the noise envelope samples in a measurement are Rayleigh distributed. A small percentage of the noise samples do not follow the Rayleigh distribution, but are of higher amplitude. This percentage is higher for an engine at cruise speed than at idle speed, and higher for heavy traffic than for light traffic.