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Research Journal of Earth and Planetary Sciences Vol. 3(2) pp. 60 – 74 April 2013
Available online http://www.globalresearchjournals.org/journal/rjeps
Copyright ©2013 Global Research Journals
Full Length Research
ANALYSIS OF RAINFALL RATES AND ATTENUATIONS FOR LINE – OF –SIGHT EHF / SHF RADIO COMMUNICATION LINKS OVER MAKURDI, NIGERIA
Isikwue, B. C.1*, Ikoyo, A. H. 1 and Utah, E.U2.
1Department of Physics, Federal University of Agriculture Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. .
2Department of Physics, University of Uyo, Nigeria.
*corresponding author’s email : bcisikwue@gmail.com
| Abstract |
This work presents the rain rates at 0.01% (R0.01) and rain attenuation at 0.01% (A0.01) for Makurdi, Nigeria using five-minutes rain fall data measured by the Nigerian Environmental and Climate Observing Program (NECOP) located at the University of Agriculture Makurdi, and the monthly rain fall data measured by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) station located at the Air force Base , Makurdi. Rain rate prediction models such as the Chebil, Moupfouma and Martins; and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) prediction models were employed. On the other hand, models used to estimate the rain attenuation on radio frequency (RF) signal (13.5GHz) were the Moupfouma and ITU rain attenuation prediction models . The measured rainfall rates of 99.0mm/h, 125.12mm/h and 99.40mm/h were obtained for NECOP - two years data; Air force Base- two years data and Air force Base-ten years data respectively. The weighted average rainfall rates for all the three sets of data obtained from Chebil’s model was 103.0mm/h. Similarly, the average rainfall attenuation for the three sets of data was 76.96dB. Among other things, the results also showed that the Chebil rain rate model gave a better rain rate since it uses the measured rain rate at any integration time. Thus, the Moupfouma attenuation model which uses the Chebil rain rate as input also gave more reliable rainfall attenuation in Makurdi, Nigeria for the period under study.
Key words: ITU model; rainfall rates; rainfall attenuation; Makurdi; NECOP; Line-of-sight, EHF / SHF radio communication links