Correlation function and power spectra of radio links affected by random dielectric noise

The correlation function and corresponding power spectrum of an electromagnetic wave affected by random dielectric noise is related to the power spectrum of the source by an extension of the notions of time-variable linear networks. It will be shown that in general, the power spectrum of the received signal can be regarded as the output of a network characterized by a time-variable transfer function. The results are applied to a long line of sight radio link and used to predict the error in the received signal in a mean squared sense. This will be used to show that the rate of a source is bounded such that there exists a maximum rate given a bandwidth and scattering parameters of the atmosphere.