Site-diversity and time-diversity fade duration statistics for fade countermeasures of DTH/VSAT Ku-band satellite services

In satellite transmissions at frequencies above 10 GHz, deep signal fading, and hence severe outage, is mainly attributed to rain. Site-diversity is an effective form of fade countermeasure. Statistics of seasonal fade variations, together with fade durations and fade intervals characteristics, are needed to give a detailed insight for VSAT system design. The paper presents a year´s worth of site-diversity data measured at an equatorial mountainous coastal location and concentrates on the joint duration aspects. Time-diversity data analysis is also covered. A companion paper (Pan, Q.W. et al., Int. J. Satellite Commun., vol.19, no.4, p.363-84, 2001) deals mainly with joint excessiveness statistics, average fade durations and duration log-normal distributions.