Ionospheric Scintillation Effects on VHF-UHF Communication Systems
Abstract
Periods of intense ionospheric scintillations were analyzed in order to provide information for the design and evaluation of the performance of satellite communication links. Scintillation data were available for the auroral and equatorial regions. The amplitude fluctuations are described by cumulative amplitude distributions and show good agreement with the with the Nakagami m-distribution. A Rayleigh distribution appears to describe the 'worst' case scintillations in the 225 to 400 MHz band. The rate of scintillation is described by level crossing techniques, power spectra, and correlation functions. The effectiveness of diversity techniques is indicated. The spectral index was measured as approximately f to the minus 0.2 power, indicating that intense scintillations can become almost frequency independent in this range. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 03, 1976
- Accession Number
- ADA026509
Entities
People
- Herbert E. Whitney
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory