Propagation Model Tuning for Terrestrial Microwave Links in Palestine

In this paper, we have studied the terrestrial microwave links operated by the Palestinian mobile network operator (JAWWAL). Particularly, we have analyzed the path loss power measurements from 90 active terrestrial microwave links at three different frequencies which are 15GHz, 18GHz and 23GHz covering all geographical locations in the West Bank. The length of these microwave links varies from about 0.174Km to 33.864Km. The path loss power measurements were compared with that of the theoretical free-space propagation model as well as with the results obtained from Mentum Ellipse software simulation tool. The root mean square error results show that the free-space model is far away (7.64 dB) from the measured data. Therefore, we have suggested to tune the free-space propagation model based on linear least squares method. The proposed tuned free-space model yields better fit to the measured data with reduced root mean square error of 5.84 dB. In addition, the suggested tuned model yields comparable results to that obtain by Mentum Ellipse simulation.