The propagation of Ka-band signals through the atmosphere

The uplink frequency for Ka-band is approximately 30 GHz and the downlink frequency for Ka-band is approximately 20 GHz. The weather conditions impact on the propagation of Ka-band signals through the atmosphere more than at lower frequencies. During a very heavy rain, noticeable signal degradation occurs. Therefore, the rain attenuation is a major challenge for this type of communication. Using ITU-R models with 99.5% availability, the highest attenuation is 0.8 dB at 20 GHz and 1.7 dB at 30 GHz. In this paper the example shows the situation with transmitting signal from a HRT DSNG6 van. When the system attempted to connect, it was searching for the SNR better than 10 dB. The required level of the SNR was not achieved. The required level of the SNR uplink was 9.61 dB because of attenuation that is calculated 0.6 dB.