Land mobile satellite channel-recording and modelling

Satellite communication with landmobile terminals is limited by strong variations of the received power level which are caused by multipath fading and signal shadowing. In order to investigate the time varying behaviour of the satellite channel several recording experiments have been performed. An unmodulated test carrier was transmitted from the ESA ground station in Villafranca (Spain) and relayed by the geostationary satellite MARECS in the L-band (1.54 GHz). The test carrier was received by a van equipped with different antennas. All antenna patterns are horizontally symmetrical in order to avoid antenna steering. The antennas with toroidal patterns exhibit vertical selectivity which is more or less pronounced. The measurements were conducted in different environments (city, suburbs, rural roads, forest, and highway) and in areas with different satellite elevations: Stockholm (13°), Copenhagen (18°), Hamburg (21^°), Munich (24°), Barcelona (34°), and Cadiz (43°)