Channel characterization and modeling for satellite communications on the move

We present results from recent measurements of a 20 GHz satellite communications on-the-move channel. The measurements were made in late autumn 2004 in the vicinity of Boston, MA, where the elevation angle to the satellite is approximately 41deg. In approximately 25% of the data sets, the distribution of blocked intervals and the autocorrelation of the channel state are consistent with a two-state Markov model. Based on observations of the data, we propose guidelines for partitioning data sets to preserve stationarity of the statistics