Baseband combiner for space diversity application: experimental results and a comparison with IF combiner

In the paper the basic structure of Alcatel high capacity STM-1 baseband combiner (applicable also for STM-0 applications) for space diversity application is described; its performances in term of signature are shown and compared with the ones of a traditional IF combiner, explaining how the former outperforms the latter. Moreover the result of extensive measurements, that have been carried out on a 10.5 GHz trial link in the northern of Italy during the summer months (that are the most affected by multipath fading), are reported. Comparison in term of outage between measured and predicted performances by theoretical models gives good agreement.