Measured 2×2 MIMO UHF channels in an urban environment

Channel measurements of 2×2 MIMO channels at 300 MHz in an urban environment are made with the purpose of comparing the usable degrees of freedom in the channel to simulation and to assess suitability of MIMO in outdoor UHF channels. It was found that the average measured condition number over the receiver path was 16.7 dB while the mean condition number for a 2×2 uncorrelated Rayleigh fading environment is 12.8 dB. The higher condition number is equivalent to about a 2 dB loss in mean SNR for MIMO performance in the ideal uncorrelated Rayleigh fading 2×2 channel.