XPD at Ka-band from an extended Earth-Satellite propagation campaign

Channel depolarization in Earth-Satellite links needs more experimental data for models validation and requires a physical oriented approach mainly to characterize the ice clouds contribution. An exploration of the variability of the complex crosspolar discrimination (XPD) is given by revisiting the physical properties of the propagation medium from rain to ice occurrence. Some measured events will be explored and detailed as examples of this complexity. The variability from year of the XPD is linked not only to rain rate distribution through rain contribution but also due to ice that usually is associated with rain showery weather. The ITU model for XPD is tested on the full database and is shown to be exceptionally accurate mainly for better XPDs.