Rain attenuation over terrestrial microwave links in South Korea

Absorption of radio frequency signal by atmospheric rain and losses is prevalent at frequencies above 10 GHz. This study presents studies on rain attenuation at 18 and 38 GHz microwave link systems, which specifies the minimum performance parameters for terrestrial fixed service digital radio communication. The 3.2 km experimental link at 18 and 38 GHz are used for studying rain propagation effects. The received signal data for rain attenuation and rain rate were collected at 10 s intervals over a 3‐year period from 2013 to 2015. The record shows rain rate of about 50 mm/h and attenuation values of 33.38, 21.88 and 20.89 dB occurred for 0.01% of the time under 18 GHz horizontal, vertical and 38 GHz vertical polarisation, respectively. This study highlights the discussion and comparison of ITU‐R P.530‐16, Moupfouma, Da Silva Mello and Abdulrahman models. Relative error margin of about 71, 60, 38%; 64, 49, 42%; 3, 38, 42% were obtained for 0.1, 0.01, 0.001% of the time in 18 GHz horizontal, vertical and 38 GHz vertical polarisation, respectively, from ITU‐R P. 530‐16 which have been analysed along with suitable approach to characterise rain attenuation in microwave link whose efficiency have been compared with prominent rain attenuation models.