Impact of Tropospheric Scintillation on Earth-Space Link in West Africa

Tropospheric scintillation occur as a result of signal fluctuations in satellite communication systems. Great attention has been giving to scintillation today because of increase in demand of bandwidth at frequency above 10 GHz. However, in West Africa countries few work have been reported in this area. Data from ITU-RP study group 3 data bank was used as input data for the analysis of tropospheric scintillation for seventeen (17) West Africa locations. Monthly and yearly mean of temperature, pressure and relative humidity were used as input parameters. The results revealed that lowest scintillation values were observed for Carpe Verde at 0.118 dB, followed closely by Niger, Mauritania, Senegal and Mali with 0.139 dB, 0.140 dB, 0.151 dB, and 0.152 dB respectively at C-band. While, countries like Ghana, Togo, Benin republic, Ivory Coast and Nigeria has the highest scintillation fade with values 1.575 dB, 1.560 dB, 1.472 dB, 1.453 dB and 1.236 dB respectively. The results also suggest that 100
^%
fadeout link might occur if a satellite communication system is planned with a low margin of about 1 dB for tropospheric scintillation fade depth at V band in these locations.