A Complete Study of the Accuracy of the Computed Atmospheric Attenuation by Radiometric Measurements

For future communications, measurements are carried out to predict the effect of the earth´s atmosphere on microwave propagation above 10 GHz. In the case of satellite links, radiometers are used for their reliability and low cost to monitor the antenna noise temperature. This method is limited by the poor accuracy of the computed atmospheric losses from the measured antenna noise power. A complete error analysis taking into account atmospheric and instrumental parameters is performed.