Coastal atmospheric effects on line-of-sight links located in Visakhapatnam - a study

Increasing usage of the microwave frequency band requires accurate characterization of atmospheric effects at these frequencies. The results of the investigations reported in this paper are based on the study of microwave propagation of line-of-sight (LOS) communication links located at Visakhapatnam (India) and the investigations are specially facilitated by the location of an acoustic sounder and radiosonde observatory very close to the path of the LOS link. In the present work, an attempt is made to study the effect of sea breeze on fading characteristics. The microwave signal variations corresponding to three LOS links are measured for several days on a 24-hour basis at two locations in the Visakhapatnam region. The hop-lengths and the operating frequencies of the three LOS links are different. The operation of a monostatic acoustic sounder provided information on the thermal structure of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). Although the data set is limited to few cases, it appears that the sea breeze has significant effect on the LOS signal strength.