IEEE Spectrum  July 20, 2020 On 25 May 1928, the airship “Dirigible Italia” after overflying the North Pole, shipwrecked on the ice pack about 400 km northeast of Svalbard Islands. Survivors were unsuccessful in sending SOS messages using a portable high frequency (HF) radio transmitter. Only after 9 days of repeated radio‐distress transmissions, a Russian radio amateur about 1,900 km away was able to receive the messages. An international team of researchers (Italy, UK) conducted a retrospective analysis of the ionospheric and geomagnetic conditions of that epoch to explain the HF radio communications problems encountered by the survivors. They concluded […]