Estimation of Antenna Gain Degradation Using Height Profiles of C_N²

Abstract

Antenna gain degradation (hereafter referred to as ‘medium-to-aperture coupling loss’) is a phenomenon commonly observed in troposcatter circuits using very high gain (large diameter) antenna.

In the present paper, authors have attempted to develop a general expression to estimate medium-to-aperture coupling loss for unidentical antenna using scattering cross-section in terms of structure parameter C_n². Typical calculations have been carried out and results compared with the observed values of medium-to-aperture coupling loss on Delhi-Pilani troposcatter operating at 4.7 GHz using identical set of antennae.

Indexing terms:

• Antenna gain
• Gain degradation