Angle diversity and space diversity experiments on the Salton/Brawley hop

Space diversity and angle diversity experimental data that have been collected over a three-year period, using 64-QAM radios, on the Salton/Brawley hop in southern California are discussed. Both measured data and simulations show that the performance of angle diversity systems depends upon the direction of transmission on the path as well as the polarization of the signal. While this may be true for space diversity, the effects of a finite spatial correlation length and a small signal-to-noise ratio significantly reduce the sensitivity of space diversity to the direction of propagation on this path. The performance of angle diversity is shown to depend upon the method used to implement angle diversity