Rain attenuation prediction along terrestrial paths in South africa using existing attenuation models

Different rain attenuation prediction models proposed by different authors on terrestrial paths are presented. These models are used to estimate the rain attenuation in different climatic rain zones in South Africa. In our previous paper, four new climatic rain zones N, M, P and Q are proposed from the locally observed data as against the ITU-R zones of C, D, E, K and N. The specific rain attenuation gamma_R (dB/km) for frequencies up to 50 GHz is computed using a 1-minute integration time rain rate exceeded for 0.01% of the time for these 4 different climatic rain zones from an available 5-year local rain rate data. Finally, the rain attenuation A_0.01 (dB) exceeded for 0.01% of the time is estimated and predicted for different geographical locations that are within these climatic rain zones based on the comparison of the different existing attenuation models at different frequencies for path lengths not exceeding 22 km.