Rough elevated layers and tropospheric microwave propagation

A theoretical approach is described which takes into account the roughness of the tropospheric layers in line-of-sight microwave links. The approach used here is essentially that used by A. R. Webster (1983). where the elevated layer is modeled using an arctan function to describe the variation in refractivity N, with height, h, In order to simulate the variation of the layer height along the path a collection of sinusoids is used with varying amplitude, wavelength and phase, so that the layer height, h/sub o/, is modified in a specified way: being differentiable, this choice allows the gradient Delta N to be determined readily despite the horizontal gradients introduced by the fluctuations. Results are presented and discussed.<>