Site Diversity Reception Performance Evaluation in Cyprus at Ka- and Q-Band for High Throughput Satellite Systems

This paper evaluates the benefits of site diversity reception at Ka- and Q-band in Cyprus. The analysis is based on local point rainfall rate meteorological data collected near the sites of interest. The performance of a double and the corresponding triple site diversity is presented along with their comparison. According to the simulations, the adoption of double and triple site receptions enhances remarkably the outage performance at both examined frequencies. If very high availability for a satellite service is required, triple diversity is a convenient option at both frequencies without leading to enormous fade margins. Finally, it is endorsed that real rainfall rate data be leveraged for diversity performance calculations, since the simulations highlighted that ITU- R rain-maps tend to overestimate the outage time.