Small-area characterisation of UHF urban and suburban mobile radio propagation

A series of experiments in urban and suburban areas at 436 MHz have been conducted using a wideband channel sounder having a time resolution capability better than 0.1 μs. Results, presented as two-dimensional scattering functions, give a physical insight into the mechanisms of propagation in various environments and yield parameters relevant to system design. It is concluded that, in urban areas, the uniform distribution of locally scattered paths often leads to a homogeneous scattering function, whereas, in suburban areas, one or two large discrete scatterers can often lead to strong paths with long delays and give the multipath propagation an inhomogeneous character.