Evaluation of the suitability of troposcatter prediction techniques over Northern India

Abstract

The design of any radio communication system requires a suitable prediction technique for calculating the received signal levels. The optimum prediction method helps to reduce the interference problems, and improves reliability of links. In the present study the path loss values deduced from various prediction techniques are compared against observed path loss values over two troposcatter links situated in northern India. The results show that April and May are the worst months and the present space and frequency diversity configuration is not able to effectively overcome the link outages. A comparison of different path loss prediction techniques showed that Yeh’s prediction method and itu-r’s method I comes close to the observed values. The predicted path loss values for worst month using itu-r’s method deviated considerably from the observed values. The present study provides valuable inputs to the itu-r study group from the tropical countries by evaluating the itu-r prediction methods against the experimental data.