Propagation measurements in Ottawa with the Ka-band beacon of the ANIK F2 satellite

Anik F2 is a telecommunications satellite launched in July 2004 for Telesat Canada. It is equipped with a beacon at 20 GHz which supports antenna pointing and user terminal rain mitigation techniques. A receiver was built in 2005 at the Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) in Ottawa to monitor the Anik F2 beacon signal. Software to perform the data acquisition and process the propagation data collected at CRC was developed as well. One important purpose of the on-going experiment is to investigate fading characteristics relevant to the design of fade mitigation techniques on satellite communication links. The paper describes the main characteristics of the experiment and presents results derived from data collected from the Anik F2 beacon signal at CRC over the period 2006-2007, namely statistics of rain rate, atmospheric-induced attenuation, duration of fades, and fade slope.