Measurement of time delay spread in Sierra Leone

As part of the development at Warwick University of a distributed digital radio network for use in rural areas of developing countries, experimental characterization of the channel parameters of a number of radio paths within Sierra Leone was performed at a low VHF frequency (53 MHz). The network being developed will employ digital modulation at around 70 kbits/s, and operate in either a simplex or time-division duplex mode. Results were obtained in the different areas of the country, and for path lengths ranging up to 40 km, distances similar to the individual links in the proposed network. The measuring system was also used for field strength work, in order to give a more complete characterisation of each channel