PREDICTION OF RAIN ATTENUATION IN SLANT PATHS IN EQUATORIAL AREAS - APPLICATION OF 2-LAYER RAIN MODEL

The Letter reports the performance of the two layer rain model at thre e equatorial sites in Brazil (Belem, Manaus and Rio), for which (relat ively) long term (two years for each experiment) attenuation at 12 GHz and concurrent rain rate distributions have become recently available in the CCIR data bank of slant path attenuation. The prediction is ex cellent for Belem and Manaus, and good for Rio. The results may sugges t that the CCIR rain height at latitudes around 23-degrees is too high and that the CCIR rain zones near the equator are too coarse.