Dual Frequency Measurements of Rain-Induced Microwave Attenuation on a 2.6-Kilometer Propagation Path

Abstract

The ratio of attenuations measured simultaneously at 18.5 and 30.9 GHz on a common 2.6-km path during 1970 in New Jersey show that, with exceptions for special cases, the Laws and Parsons drop-size distribution adequately represents the rain on terrestrial microwave communications paths. The ratio derived from cumulative distributions of attenuation is also discussed. A rain-induced attenuation of 30 dB is found to be exceeded 0.001 and 0.01 percent of the time at 18.5 and 30.9 GHz, respectively. These results are in good agreement with attenuations derived from rain rates obtained on the Holmdel rain gauge network.