Second Order Excess Attenuation Statistics in Athens, Greece at 19.701 GHz using ALPHASAT

Satellite links operating at Ka-band and above are susceptible to propagation phenomena and require the use of advanced Fading Mitigation Techniques (FMTs) in order to minimize downtime and outages. Nonetheless both the design and the application of FMTs require highly accurate channel modeling which in turn asks for actual experimental data to test against. In this paper, the first and mainly the second order attenuation statistics (long term excess attenuation, fade and inter-fade duration and fade slope, time diversity) obtained using the ALPHASAT beacon at 19.701 GHz in Athens, Greece are presented and evaluated for a 2-year duration. Significant observations and conclusions can be drawn based on the presented results.