Joint results of long-term earth-space propagation experiments at 20-GHz in Canada and Europe

Propagation effects such as rain or clouds attenuation cause deeper fades in the Ka-band than at lower frequencies. In this collaborative paper, the main results of four long-term Ka-band propagation campaigns are presented. The experiments are carried out in Ottawa, Canada; Aveiro, Portugal; Madrid, Spain; and Toulouse, France. Attenuation statistics are derived from satellite beacon data collected over 6 years at Aveiro, 5 years at Ottawa and Madrid and 2 years at Toulouse. Multi-year measurements allow the production of more stable statistics reflecting the long-term behavior of propagation phenomena and to investigate its year-to-year variability. The beacon signal data was monitored and collected on a continuous basis over the whole measurement period. After a brief introduction of the experiments, rain rate and excess attenuation results are discussed, first for a common measurement period and later for the whole database available. Seasonal attenuation statistics for Ottawa and Aveiro are compared. Finally, fade duration and fade slope statistics derived at three locations are presented and discussed.