Experimental Campaign With First Results For Determining High North 20 Ghz Satellite Links Propagation Conditions

Satellite services in the High North are utilized extensively for both communication purposes and for earth and climate observations. This paper presents a European Space Agency (ESA) funded propagation and telecom measurements campaign addressing the main challenges for this regions. The interest is in the K-band frequency 20 GHz, as these systems allow for much more data transmission. There are very limited results available for this type of climate and the experiment is aimed to expand the data bases, test and refine predication methods of attenuation, scintillation and multipath propagation. The telecom part is expected to give a hands-on result of possible broadband impairments under rain and non-rain conditions. The first year propagation results give indication of dimensioning due to rainfall and for clear-air conditions.