Tropical Weather Effects on Foliage Propagation

This paper investigates the dynamic property of a tropical forested channel due to the weather effects on UHF radio wave propagation. In this study, continuous wave (CW) envelope fading waveforms are recorded over a period of 50 seconds with static antennas. The weather induced temporal variation has been analysed with the Rician distribution function. Special attention is given to the combined effect of wind and rain on a forested channel. These are typical weather conditions encountered in the tropical region. It is found that the incidental showers or thunderstorm with wind can produce deep fades in the received signal waveforms. (5 pages)