Rain Attenuation and Rain-Rate Maps for Microwave-Communication-Network Power Sizing over the Southern African Subregion

For high-frequency microwave systems, rain attenuation is the most severe impairment to propagation. To determine the suitable transmission and reception quality, system design engineers require knowledge of the cumulative distribution of the rainfall rates and the rain-induced attenuation throughout the coverage region. This work provides a catalog of rain-rate and rain-attenuation contour maps useful for sizing network power and planning links over the Southern African region. They were created using rainfall rates determined from a 32-year precipitation product from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) and attenuation estimates for hypothetical space-earth networks for receiving digital satellite television content over selected countries in the Southern African subregion.