Rain Fading

3 natures of Precipitation

1. Orographic Precipitation – when mist air if force upwards to high ground until due point is
reached.
2. Convectional Precipitation – occurs during not summer days when, in the afternoon, there is
cloud build up due to convection of hot humid air.
3. Cyclonic Precipitation- due to synoptic features such as depressions and fronts
Effective Path length

Effects of Rain Drops on RF

Refraction – when the radio wave behaves like light and gets refracted through an optical filter
or prism.
Scattering or Diffusion – the sheet of rain acts like a diffusion filter, causing the normally pencil
beam( narrow main lobe) to enlarge at the point where the wavelength of the frequency used is
much larger than the rain drop size.
Repropagation – when the wavelength is much smaller than the raindrop and gravitation causes
the falling raindrop to distort into an oval shape, each drop would then act like a tiny dipole,
receiving the radio wave and radiating it isotropically.

Factors that Affect Multipath Propagation

Frequency- the duplex nature of microwave links mean that 2 carrier frequencies used may
behave differently, even when belonging to the same band.
Path Length – for long haul paths, variations in the atmospheric conditions in certain parts of
the path does cause multipath propagation.
Humidity – the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere. The more humid the location is, the
higher the refractive index of that location.
Temperature- wide temp shifts and extreme temp values causes variations in humidity and
therefore refractivity. Temperature rises and falls at great depths causes elevated ducts,
extreme hit temp causes water vaporization and extreme cold causes condensation.
Wind Velocity- for high wind velocities, may push rain, fog or low level clouds between the path
at erratic intervals, while areas with low wind velocity cause rain, fog and low level clouds to
maintain an almost stationary position, causing the multipath propagation and resulting fade to
last longer.
Fog- cold saturated water vapour close to the point of condensation
Rainfall Rate- covers rain drop size and terminal velocity. Causing diffusion, refraction and
absorption(repropagation) to occur.
Angle Diversity used a special kind of antenna with 2 feeds, one at the foci paraboloid, and
another slightly lower.

Reflectors – to purposely bend the path around obstructions which cannot be

avoided.

2 Common forms of reflectors

1. Billboard reflectors – flat reflected surface which is constructed at a

strategic point which allows controlled reflection
 2. Back-to-back antennas – 2 parabolic dishes which are connected together by
a short piece of waveguide

Repeaters(active)- considered and computed as 2 separate links.

Factors that affect Reliability

Path length – inversely proportional, as path length increases, it becomes harder to

maintain a high degree of reliability, primarily because of the increase in value of free
space path loss.

Antenna size – directly proportional, the larger antenna used, the larger the gain.
Fade margin- directly proportional, the larger the fade margin, the higher the
reliability.

Frequency- inversely proportional, the higher the frequency used, the lower the
reliability.

Redundancy (protection) – directly proportional, when link is backed up with a hot

standby or with diversity, the chances of loss of signal due to equipment failure or
multipath fading is reduced and increasing reliability

Signal processing equipment(baseband, FEC, et.al)- directly proportional, when

specialized circuits are added to remove noise, correct phase distortions, compensate
for fading of the signal and correct bits of error on the composite bit stream increasing
reliability.

Dehydrators – pump cool dry air into the waveguide, reducing the amount of water
vapor inside, and increasing the pressure higher than that of ambient conditions.

Grounding and bonding – simple way to eliminate noise in a microwave. Every

assembly located outside plant is earthed to a common ground point or ground bus.