An Experiment on Propagation of 60-GHz Waves Through Rain

An experiment was designed to determine the effect of rainfall upon the attenuation and polarization of millimeter waves. Vertically polarized waves at 60 GHz were transmitted over a 1-km path, and the energy received in both the vertical and horizontal polarizations, as affected by rain, was detected and recorded at the receiving site; similarly, a horizontally polarized wave was transmitted and the same components measured. Data were collected over a period of one year (1970) using an all-solid-state measuring set. It was found that attenuation due to rain exceeded 42 dB for 5 minutes, and that a system employing orthogonally polarized signals would have had to tolerate signal-to-crosstalk ratios as poor as 22 dB for that same period of time.