AN OVERVIEW OF RAINFALL FADING PREDICTION MODELS FOR SATELLITE LINKS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

This work presents an overview of rainfall fading models over satellite links in South Africa using three years of rainfall data collected by the Joss-Waldvogel RD-80 disdrometer in Durban, South Africa (29[degrees] 52'S, 30[degrees] 58'E), alongside a colocated Ku-band satellite TV link. Different drop size distribution models, such as Lognormal, Gamma, Weibull, and the Optimised drop size distribution model for Equatorial Africa, are used to formulate the rainfall attenuation models used in this study. Thereafter, the formulated attenuation models are used to convert rainfall rate time series data to predicted rainfall attenuation time series. In addition, both the ITU-R model and the Synthetic Storm Techniques are applied for comparison with the above rainfall attenuation models alongside experimental measurements over the 12.6 GHz satellite TV link from Intelsat-20 (IS-20) located at 68.5[degrees]E on the azimuth angle of 57.5[degrees] with respect to Durban.