Propagation of microwave satellite communication signals through striated media

A series of multiple phase screen computations covered frequencies from 300 MHz to 9 GHz, rms electron concentration fluctuations from 10,000 to 10,000,000 electrons/cc for layers 150 km and 500 km thick at mean ranges of 300 and 1000 km respectively. The integrated phase shift irregularities were characterized by both exponential and inverse cube power spectral density functions with various characteristic lengths. When fading (scintillation) was significant, the important, low amplitude portion of the receiver signal is nearly Rician. The phase screen perturbations that are associated with structure of spatial wavelengths less than pie lf (lf is the Fresnel distance) are those responsible for the multipath scintillations. The field strength decorrelation distance in the receiver plane is approximately 1.414 times the reciprocal of the rms transverse derivative of phase in the phase screens when scintillation is significant.