Fading at 9.6 GHz on an experimentally simulated aircraft-to-ground path

This report describes an experimental study of fading at 9.6 GHz on a fixed slanted line-of-sight path simulating aircraft-to-ground propagation conditions. Recordings of signal fading were made over about one year. The data were analyzed to provide a statistical description of the fading, and to compare some of these statistics with those obtained elsewhere under different climatic and terrain conditions. The results include the probabilities of occurrence of fading rates and fade durations at several signal levels below the hourly median level. The extent to which fading behavior depends on time-of-day and time-of-year was investigated, along with the correlation of hourly average fade duration and hourly fading rate.