Rain and Rain-Induced Degradations of Satellite Links Over a Tropical Location

This paper studies the rain-induced propagation characteristics over a tropical location Kolkata, India, using the data collected over a 7 year period, i.e., 2004-2010. This location experiences substantial rainfall during the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) season which is preceded by premonsoon rainfall accompanied by strong convection. Accumulations, event duration, and fade duration statistics are presented. Long-term observations for three propagation effects, namely rain attenuation, scintillations, and depolarization, are analyzed in this paper. The seasonal patterns of these phenomena are examined to reveal the characteristic features of Kolkata. The interrelations among rain rate, rain attenuation, scintillations, and depolarization are also investigated. Propagation detriments for identical rain rates are more severe in premonsoon compared to monsoon period, mainly because of the different microphysical properties of precipitation. However, the percentage occurrences of various propagation effects are higher in monsoon than premonsoon.