Assessment of various models for the prediction of the outage time on the earth-to-space link due to excess rain attenuation

Rain attenuation statistics at 11.6 GHz 32 deg elevation angle deduced from four years of measurements at three different locations in Italy employing the SIRIO Satellite have been utilized to test the performances of six prediction methods of rain attenuation cumulative distribution developed in the USA, Europe and Japan. Suitable figures of merit have been introduced to compare measured and predicted attenuation for each model.