Site-diversity performance at Ku-band in Peru

Results of a propagation experiment conducted at a low latitude location are presented. The experiment was designed to address the lack of measured data, at Ku-band frequencies and above, from tropical regions where there is a high incident of rainfall. Sky noise at 11.6 GHz and rainfall measurements were made at two sites separated by 30 km. Both single-site and site-diversity results in terms of derived path attenuation are presented for a single year. Path attenuation results compare favorably with the current CCIR rain attenuation prediction model. Diversity gain was found to be somewhat higher than the prediction based on a model that has given consistent predictions for temperature climates