Fade and non-fade statistics for land mobile satellite communication with higher elevation satellite

This paper reports land mobile satellite propagation measurements at higher elevation angles using the ETS-VI satellite at S-band (2.1 GHz) frequency. During the links between the ETS-VI and a ground earth station, the satellite is available at 50 to 67 degrees in elevation, 10 to 20 degrees higher than with geostationary satellites. Propagation data at the same test course and different elevation angles to the satellite are taken that describe elevation dependent properties of fade and non-fade duration statistics. Measured data show that shadowing statistics depend on the elevation angle and that the use of higher elevation satellites greatly enhance the availability of land mobile satellite communication systems. Conditional distributions of non-fade duration after fade state are analyzed for possible application to packet data communications