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On 11 December 1924, Edward Victor Appleton and Miles Aylmer Fulton Barnett perform an experiment: the Bournemouth broadcasting radio transmitter slowly changes wavelength; an Oxford radio receiver records alternating maxima and minima from ground wave-skywave wave interference. The inferred equivalent height is about $90\mathrm{km}$. A separate comparison of simultaneous loop and vertical antenna signals tests the downward arrival direction. The E layer is established first; the higher F layer is found in winter 1926–27. These dates describe different findings.^[ref]

Why change the wavelength deliberately? Ordinary fading alone could arise from changing emission, receiver drift or a moving propagation path. A controlled sweep predicts a specific progression of phase difference between two arrivals. The directional antenna comparison supplies an independent kind of evidence for an overhead contribution. Agreement supports an atmospheric return; fitting a distance alone would not establish a unique electron density profile. In the model below, comparable received amplitudes make the interference fringes easier to see. A practical repetition would also calibrate the frequency sweep, track radio transmitter output and receiver gain, and compare repeated sweeps with fixed-frequency intervals to detect time drift. These are controls inferred from the measurement model, rather than additional procedures attributed to the historical account.

The radio receiver does not need to resolve two pulses to detect two paths. If one path takes longer, the two contributions reaching the receiver during a slow frequency sweep carry slightly different emission frequencies and can produce a slow beat in the detected amplitude. At strictly fixed frequency with stationary paths, the arrivals instead have a fixed phase difference: there is no continuing beat merely because one path is longer. This distinction connects the historical observation to ionospheric interference fringe spacing.

The E layer is a main region of the ionosphere below the F layer. The 1924 Appleton-Barnett radio interference experiment concerns this lower region.^[ref]

For a vertical outgoing and returning radio wave, define the virtual height $h^{\prime }=c{\tau }_g/2$ from its round-trip group delay ${\tau }_g$, after removing instrument delays. It is the height a fictitious reflector would have if both legs traveled at $c$. It differs from both the real turning height $z_t$ and a height fitted to an oblique constant-path interference fringe model.

An original solvable profile makes the difference explicit. Approximate the region below $z_0$ by $n=1$, and prescribe a linear rise of squared plasma frequency above it:Here the symbol $u_t$ denotes the penetration depth, and $a$ has units ${\mathrm{s}}^{-2}{\mathrm{m}}^{-1}$. In the propagating part of the ramp, $n=\sqrt{1-(z-z_0)/u_t}$. In the leading geometrical-ray delay model, with a frequency-independent turning connection wave phase, the round-trip group delay isThe endpoint singularity is integrable: substitute $s=\sqrt{1-u/u_t}$ to obtain $2u_t$. This approximation does not resolve the finite-wavelength structure at the turning region. It illustrates the effect of slow group velocity before the return, rather than adding extra geometric altitude.

As an independent phase-based derivation, the propagation contribution to the round-trip wave phase isIts derivative $d\Psi /d\omega =2(z_0+2{\omega }^2/a)/c$ agrees with the delay integral. Using the phase integral itself as a distance at speed $c$ would give $z_0+2u_t/3$ instead of $h^{\prime }$: wave phase, group delay and real turning height are three different quantities.

Choose $z_0=70\mathrm{km}$ and stipulate $f_p(z)=3\mathrm{MHz}\sqrt{(z-z_0)/(30\mathrm{km})}$, where $f_p={\omega }_p/(2\pi )$. ThenAt $f=3\mathrm{MHz}$, the real turning height is $100\mathrm{km}$ but the virtual height is $130\mathrm{km}$, corresponding to ${\tau }_g\simeq 0.867\mathrm{ms}$ with $c\simeq 3.00\times 10^8\mathrm{m}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. These stipulated parameters describe neither a measured profile nor a separate physical reflector at $130\mathrm{km}$. Because the ramp has no density maximum, it also has no finite upper penetration threshold; a real bounded E layer or F layer requires a richer profile.