Radio Propagation and Planning

Hamilton setende
Introduction
Electromagnetic radiation is everywhere around us, from microwaves, infrared radiation, visible light, x-ray, gamma ray and even radio waves. Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation and in our daily lives are used to transfer music, pictures, data wireless through the air over long and short distances. Many things depend on radio waves to function, things like microwave ovens, to radio transmission, wireless communication systems. In telecommunications information is transferred via electromagnetic waves over free space, in these case the transmission medium would be the air (atmosphere) which is very hostile and the signals can be affected by the different refractive indexes, diffraction, refraction, reflection, absorption, scattering an varying weather conditions. So when planning for a new network, something have to be taken into consideration like the effects of atmospheric radio propagation.

Radio Propagation.
Radio propagation refers to how radio waves behave when they are transmitted from one point to another through the air. Radio waves travel faster in vacuum and although the ideal high for radio propagation is 1km from the ground, it is not feasible and so impossible to have antennas that high, so the highest antennas are normally positioned about 150 meters from the ground, this in turn creates problems for radio propagation, because, the closer to the ground the worst the signal is affected by the K-factor and effects of the atmosphere such as: Rain, Ray curvature, multipath propagation depolarization etc.

How the different refractive index affect the path of the transmitting signal.
1. Reflection- Reflection happens when the transmitting signal is in contact with an object like water or flat land etc.; this causes it to change direction and also causing echoes. Refraction-Not all energies will experience the same medium the same way and has a wave leaves one medium to another; it can change its direction and velocity, e.g.: a mirage, an

2.

illusion where a person in a desert sees what seems to be a pool of water when its actually a reflection of the sky. We can also refer to refraction as the bending of electromagnetic waves as they pass between materials with different refractive indexes. Reflection and refraction do not occur without refraction. 3. Diffraction-Occurs when the path between the transmitter and the receiver is obstructed by obstacles, causing them to separate or spread out.

E.g.: Rainbow, where white light is diffracted into various colors. 4. Absorption-Higher frequencies shorter the lanbder the grater the penetrating ability. Absorption is the way energy of photons interacts or is taken by matter. Eg: Free space loss (Free space propagation) A basic telecommunication system consists of three primary units: -Transmitter (Tx antenna) that takes information, converts it into a signal. -Receiver (Rx antenna) takes the signal from the channel and converts it back into usable information. -Transmission medium, which in this case is the air or also referred as space channel, which carries the signal. In free space or vacuum, there is nothing to interfere with the radio wave propagation, So the signal strength depends on the distance between the transmitter and receiver. Free space loss is a calculation of how much of the radiated signal is left and reaches the receiver after it spreads out as it travels from the transmitter through the air. This equation is referred to as Radio link equation. PR= PT + GT + GR - 92.4 - 20Log (F) 20 Log (L) Where: PT = Transmitted power (dBm) GT = TX antenna gain (dB) GR = Rx antenna gain (dB) PR = Received power (dBm) F = Frequency (GHz) L = Hop length (Km) It can also be referred as PR = PT + GT + GR Fsl.

Antenna Gain Antenna gain is a measure of antenna efficiency when power is concentrated in a certain direction, compared to an Isotropic (radiates in all directions). Usually expressed in dB Every 3dB increase is a doubling power (intensity) Free space loss increases by 6dB if: the hop length is doubled or the frequency is doubled, while antenna gain is 6dB higher if: antenna diameter is doubled or frequency is doubled. This means that the bigger the diameter the more gain. Antenna gain equation is: G = 20Log (D) + 20Log (F) + 18.2 +- 0.5. An antenna with low gain radiates signals with the same power in all directions, while a high power antenna radiates in a particular direction. This means that high gain antennas can make more use of weaker signals than low gain antennas.

Link Budget
Link budget is the Measurement of all the losses and gains from the transmitter, through the medium. Uses Logarithmic units (dB,dBm), all gains are added with positive numbers and subtracted by all the losses. We can say that gain can also mean quantifying the losses and quantifying the signal strength. PR (dBm) = PT + GT (db) + GR (dB) losses (dB).

Fade Margin
The fade margin is the least amount of signal that can be received before the receiver reaches its threshold PTH, basically the fade margin enables the link to keep working even if the there is signal

loss, as long as this signal power is not lower than the fade margin. The fade margin calculation is: FM(dB) = PR (dBm) PTH (dBm).

K-Factor
The closer to the ground the worst the K-factor, it is affected by the different refractive indexes, it indicates the atmosphere state at a given time and how it affects the radio ray curvature. Optimal K-factor is grater than 4/3 and normally found in temperate conditions, while less than 4/3 means we are closer to the ground which is not good for transmission. This means that minimum K-factor means bad and Maximum K-factor means good.

Fresnel Ellipsoid.
The Fresnel Ellipsoid also known as the Fresnel zone, is where we would find the main signal or most likely find 50 % of the signal(reserved volume of space), because of this any obstruction on the Fresnel ellipsoid has an impact on the receiving power. Fresnel Ellipsoid equation is: F1 300L1(L-L1)/(FL) F = frequency L =

Hop

Length

(km)

Multipath Propagation Is when the transmitted signal reaches the receiving antenna by more than one path Causes of multipath propagation are: reflection from water or buildings and mountains, water vapor, etc. The effects of multipath are: constructive and destructive interference, phase shifting, echoes and

fading.

Multipath depends allot on: frequency, hop length, climatic conditions, being that, tropical climate are more prone to multipath, they normally have a k-factor of 2/3.

Space diversity
In order to decrease the chances of fading, a technique of space diversity is implemented, where two antennas are arranged on a single structure with spacing of normally 150 t0 250 wavelengths. The wider the antenna space, the less fading there will be. The two antenna technique can also be used to switch to best signal, when the signal in one antenna is bad, it is switched to the other antenna with a better signal or it can also combine two signals in order to improve the signal. The objective of this is to maximize power and to minimize distortion.

Propagation through ducts

The atmosphere can also force and guide signals to various directions, because of the refractive indexes in the air. Ducts function as guides and they direct the signal to a certain direction, also known as wave guide,

routing, and piping. It is classified as: Surface duct and Elevated duct. Ground Reflection Flat land or ground can also disturb a signal, depending on the relation of the signal and the ground, the signal can reflect and can create multipath or echoes, in order to avoid this, height and location of antennas have to be taken into consideration, a planner should try and avoid having antennas too close to the ground or near water bodies.

Propagation through rain Radio waves are subject to scattering and can be absorbed by rain causing a loss of signal, frequency bands like 22.5 and 60 GHz have maximum attenuation of 0.18 and 16 dB respectively and are not suitable, for areas with allot of rain fall, as they are the resonance frequency of water and oxygen, making the easily absorbed in this conditions, while if used in temperate climates, they will not be much affected by absorption. The absorption and scattering of signals by rain also depend on the intensity of the rain; the more intense the more attenuation there is, and produces signal fades for long periods. The ITU keeps details of the climate of different countries and when planning for a network, planners can request these details, to help them in the planning. There are methods to predict rain fall in certain areas using those details provided by the ITU, using the Rain unavailability prediction: Time % vs. Rain attenuation curve, using we can predict how much our signal will be affected or attenuated by rain fall during a period of a year and also we can predict how much fade margin would be.

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