1842

IEEE TRANSACTIONSON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-27, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1979

Multipath Fading Effects on Digital Radio

WILLIAM T. BARNETT.
MEMBER. IEEE

Abstmct-An experimental study of multipath fading effects on an 8-PSK 6 GHz digital radio system was conducted on a 26.4 mi test link near Atlanta, Georgia. Results were obtained for a nondiversity arrangement and space-diversity arrangement employing a a cophasing combiner operating at 70 M H z and fed by two antennas separated by 30 ft. Multipath fading was found to have a significant impact on bit error rate performance, i.e., the digital radio system was fragile by comparison to conventional analog FM radio. Modest in-band linear amplitude dispersion, 0.2 dB/MHz for example, was sufficient to causea BER >lO-3. Suchdispersionoccurred at (average power)fade depths as shallow as 20 dB. However, average fade depth was a poor indicator of BER performance. The measured hop missed short haul outage objectives by an order of magnitude without space-diversity, and was close t o acceptable when diversity was activated.

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1. INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1.

Digital Radio 1977 PerformanceStudy

IGH capacity digital radip is aneconomicallyattractive candidate t o satisfy the growing requirements forinterconnecting digital switching machines and metropolitan digital carrier concentrations. This application calls for abackbone facilitycapable ofadding/dropping voice circuits atpoints separated by a few tens of miles. Relative t o analog facilities, lower costs of digital multiplexersandchannelbanks offset the higher digital radio line costs. The minimum capacity of a common carrier digital radio for message service is dictated by current FCC regulations as 1152 voice circuits.This equates t o acapacityof about 76 Mbitsls or 2.6 bits/Hz in the 30 MHz bandwidth available in the 6 GHz common carrier band. Available systems meet this requirement with 8 level phase shift keying (8-PSK) which has a practical upper limit of 3 bits/Hz. However, the transmission deviations associated with multipath fading could have a serious impact on the performance of high capacity digital radios employing 8 PSK modulation. In order t o test this hypothesis an experimental study was undertaken on a 26.4 mi test link near Atlanta, Ga. The work reported herefocused onthe relationshipbetween multipath fadingand biterrorrate (BER) performancein the regime appropriate t o voice circuit application. ,2. SYNOPSIS The experimental results described in this paper show that the frequency selectivity accompanying multipath fading has a dramaticimpacton transmissionperformance. We found that a better way t o predict bit-error-rate performance than the traditional measurement of average power fade depth is to
Manuscript received January16,1979; revised August 8,1979. Thispaper was presented attheInternational Conferenceon Communications, Toronto, Ont., Canada, June 1978. The author is with Bell Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ 07733.

measure peak-to-peakamplitudedispersion* attheinputto the digital demodulator. Thenon-diversityperformance missed Bell System short haul voice circuit objectives. Significant but insufficientimprovementinperformance was providedby space diversity operation implemented with a cophasing combiuer. The paper organization has the experimental arrangements described in Section 3 , the non-diversity results in Section 4 , the diversity results in Section 5, and the conclusions in Section 6. 3. EXPERIMENT DESCRIPTION The experimental configuration (Figure 1) used during summer 1977 utilized an available 78 Mbit/s 6 GHz PSK digital radio system to probe the channel. The transmitting equipment locatedinAtlanta consistedofa 26 Mbit/spseudorandom source* * plus clock as input to an 8 PSK IF (70 MHz) modulator whose output was upconverted to an RFfrequency of 6034.2 MHz and amplified by a TWT to 5 W. The RFsignal was radiatedfroma standard horn reflector on the Atlanta, Georgia radio relay tower. The signal, after propagating 26.4 mi over a line-of-sight path, was intercepted by two antennas: a standard horn reflector and a 10-ft parabolic dish separated by 30 ft and mounted on aradio relay tower at Palmetto, Georgia. Table1details path engineering data. The received signals were down converted to a 70 MHz IF, delay equalized, and added by an equal gain phase controlled IF combiner.*** The combined IF signal was amplified t o a fixed level, demodulated and detected. One of the three 26 Mbit/s streams'was

* Amplitude dispersion refers to the variation of amplitude with frequency. ** Fifteen bit shift register. *** The nondiversity experiment did not include the IF combiner.

0090-6778/79/1200-1842$00.75 0 1979 IEEE

BARNETT: MULTIPATH FADING EFFECTS ON DIGITAL RADIO TABLE 1 PATH ENGINEERING DATA
Receiver Transmitter

1843

Horn Reflector
r .
\

Dish

Power (d9m

a t b a yt o p )
35.8 35.8 -31.1 -31.8

C a l c u l a t e d- 7 8 . 2 Measured -28.3 P a t h Loss ( d B )

Waveguide 8 . 3 ( 4 ) 5 . 4 ( 3 ) 3 . 8 ( 2 ) Antenna 2 6 . 4M i l e s
Net Loss
DADE C a b l e
(1)

.. . . . .
-43.0 140.8 64 2.5(5)
140.8

. .. ..I ...... .. .. . . . . . .

-., , -.

i :

, , , ,
56

-43.0

-43.0

IO

I5 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 TUENY*UTESFRW23OO.JU)IEP,~

66.9

Fig. 2.

Digital Radio (78 Mbits/s, 6 GHz)Atlanta to PalmettoNondiversity-Horn Reflector Time Series

I n c l u d e s1 . 2

dB b a y o s s r o m l f

t e s t p o i n tt ob a yt o p .

(2) ncludes 6 t. f I 9 f o networks. ( 3 )I n c l u d e s2 9 1 networks.

WC281, 99 f t . o f WR159, 4 a n d 6 GHz

OO
f t . of WC281,

1 1 7f t .

o f WRl59, 4 a n d 6 GHz

10.0

. -

AVG RECEIVED POWER

- - A

(4) (5)

Includes 40 t. 4 f Includes 8t. 7f

o f EW59, 50 f t . o f WR159.

20.0

----------X)dB

of 7 2 8 a b l e . c

300

TABLE 2 FLAT FADE CHARACTERISTICS:HORN REFLECTOR RECEIVING ANTENNA

RF Power (dBm: f t o p 2 6b a y ) o

m
W

240.0

POWERAT 58.3 MHz ( X ) AT 81.4 MHz ( 0 )

B i t E r r o r Rate Mb/s

T h e r m a l Noise MF aF leant( d 9 ) a rd i g

-67.7 -69.4
-71.2

42.9

-72.9 -74.6

I 44.6

SECOND ONE

BER

monitoredfor bit errors, eachof which generated an error pulse. The number of error pulses per second was counted and recorded on magnetic tape. The average power received by each antenna was also recorded (1 dB quantization) along with a spectrum measure obtained in the form of power detected in 200 kHz sampling fdters which probed the spectrum every 1.1 MHz, from 58.3 MHz to 81.4 MHz.? Table 2 indicates equipment performancein termsof BER experiencesunder uniformly attenuated RF power. The 1977 test data include (1) nondiversity results with the horn reflector receive antenna from 6/17-7/5 and 7/19-7/28, a 28-day test period and (2) diversity results with the IF combiner arrangement from 8/6-9/15, a 41-day test period.
4. NONDIVERSITY RESULTS

0.0 5.0

10.0 i 5 . 0 MO 25.0 m.0 35.0 4 0 . 0 5 . 0 4 500 550 80.0 TIME IN SECONDS FROM 2154:30,XME 20,1977

Fig. 3.

Digital Radio(78Mbits/s, 6 GHz) Atlanta to PalmettoNondiversity-Horn Reflector Time Series

4.1 Sample Time Series

The seventy of the multipath fading impact on bit error rate (BER) performance is illustrated in Figure 2 which portrays a 1-h timesequence of observed average received power and BER. These data are typical for an hour with ex-

t The relatively flat amplitude sqectrum of PSK modulation lends itself t o such measurements.

tensive multipath fading. Instances of BER > lop3 abound, although there are no fades exceeding 46.3 dB, the flat fade depth corresponding to 10W3 (Table 2). A selected segment of the sample time sequence is shown with an expanded time scale in Figure 3. We notethat a modest 19 dB fade has resulted in BER of 5 X a The cause for theerror behavior is channeldispersion, which is illustrated by thecenter trace which portraysthe relative power at 58.3 and 81.4 MHz. They differ by some 5 dB during the second containing the BER = 5 X Other data (not displayed)indicate that the dispersion experiencedhere was linear in dB versus frequency during the entire minute shown in Figure 3. The correlation between amplitude dispersion and BER was good. It will be shown that this was generally observed to be true.

i 844
0.0

IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-27, NO. 1 2 , DECEMBER 1979

io.0
20.0
0

io0 OD

, 30.0 "

z 40.0

It

I
200
POWER AT AT

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-20dB
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58.3 MHz 8i .4 MHz

(XI!

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30n
-40dB

40.0

93
W

$ 500
I

W p

600
70.0
m

I -. . . . . . . ?

. I I

'

0.0

5.0 10.0 i 5 . 0 20.0 25.0 JQ.0 350 40.0 45.0

TIME INSECONDS FROM 2217:45,JUNE 20,1977

I I , I 50.0 5 5 0 60D

;s

1 1

I-

2 3 1 2 1

t
1 1

- -1 1 ' 1

d
1 1 ~ ~

Fig. 4.

DigitalRadio (78 Mbitsls,6GHz)Atlanta to Palmetto Nondiversity-Horn Reflector Time Series

0.0 50 100

150 20.0 25.0 3 . 35.0 40.0 450 SO.O.;JSO 60.0 00

TIME IN SECONDS FROM 2219:O,JUNE20.1977

Fig. 5.

Figure 4 displhys a sample of high dispersion (8 dB) during a 27 dB fadewhichforceda loss of synchronization at the terminal (BER 2 lov1). Following a gradual onset, a BER was exceeded for 26 s. Thesystem registered a step recovery when the dispersion decreased to 4 dB. ' In contrast to the above, a 42 dB fade with little dispersion is seen to correspond to a 10-3 BER, as displayed in Figure 5 . This sample demonstrates that a digital radio system could achieve the moreconventionally expected flatfade performance listed in Table 2 if fades were not dispersive. Babler1S2 has shown, and Figures 2 to 5 demonstrate, that this is generally not a situation nature offers.

DigitalRadio (78 Mbits/s,6 GHz) Atlanta to Palmetto Nondiversity-Horn Reflector Time Series

=ONESECBER = AVEPWRHR

105

6=583MHzPWR
x 2 69.4 MHz PWR 0=81.4MHz PWR

HEAVY FADING MONTH

104

4.2 Statistical Results Summary probability distributions are displayed in Figure 6 for the 1-s bit error rate (BER), the average power of the (faded) signal and,the power received ina 200 kHz bandwidth centered on 58.3 MHz, 69.4 MHz, and 81.4 MHz. The amplitude statistics of the spectral samples are essentially identical, implying that the multipath fading is unbiased with respect to frequency, i.e., the sample epoch is such that amplitude dispersion (which is illustrated by Figures 2 to 5) had n o frequency preference. The average power has, as expected, the same amplitude statistics as the individual narrowband samples, deviating only for fades in excess of 35 dB. The dashed line indicates the calculatedstatistics for a 26.4 mi 6 GHz path during heavy fading a The consistency of the amplitude data and thdir agreement with the calculated statistic,suggests that the sample data are representative of a typical heavy fading month.

10

IO

30

- 40.0
Fig. 6 .

+iO.O

+20.0

+30.0

+40.0

+500

FADE DEPTH IN dB

Amplitude and BER Statistics,Nondiversity Horn Reflector, 6/17-1/5 and 7119-7/28, 1977

BARNETT: MULTIPATH FADING EFFECTS ON DIGITAL RADIO

1845

BER statistics are also displayed in Figure 6. During the pample period there are 3700 s witherrors,2900 s with a BER 2 1.2 X loW6 and, 1000 s with a B E R 2 1.2 X..,lO-3. All of theerrored seconds were due to multipath kading; during nonfading periods the sample system ran error free. Supplementary BER statistics are:
BER
~

7 r

o l
X

;
2-

q
-

10% CUWLATIVE

I+

rz
U

Time Exceeded Duration 2900 s

No. of Events 195

83

Avg.

!$ g
Y

a m

k -0 B I
W 0 0

1.2 x 1 0 4 1.2 X 10-3

15 s
12 s

52

1000 s

Bz r E
Y

n
30

Forapplication to voice circuittransmission, we deQ:ne an outagesecond to be one inwhich the BER 2 1.2 X 2,0-!3 At this error rate, multiplexers tend to reframe; this in m r n .induces carrier group alarms in the digital channel banks (thereby causing circuit disconnects). This definition of outage provides a bridge t o existing analog radiooutage objectives. Current cumulative short-haul objectives4 require no more than 0.02 percent annual outage due t o all causes, for a 250-mi system. Scaling to a 26.4-mi hop, allocating the entire objective t o multipath fading, and assuming three fading months per year results in a 110-s fading month objective for the model 26.4-mi hop.?? Nondiversity digital outage (BER 2 1.2 X measured at 1000 s exceeds the short-haul objective by a factor of 9. During the sample period,the average fade depth which was exceeded for the same cumulative interval as the defined digital outage level (BER 2 1.2 X was 28.5 dB (Figure 6 ) . This we term the equivalent fade margin forthetest system. This measure underscores the fragility of high capacity digital radiosystems tomultipath induceddispersion.Note (Figure 6) that a BER of 1.2 X lop6 corresponds to the same cumulative fade time as 23.5 dB. Such equivalent fade margins comparepoorly to thoseof FM radio, which are generally in the 35-40 dB range, i.e., the unprotected test digital system has some 10 dB less margin (dispersion dominated) and hence a factor of 10 more nondiversity outage than one expects in an analog FM system. The digital outage data were analyzed t o determinetheir correlation with receive total power;results are displayed in Figure 7. Average power fade depths corresponding t o BER 2 1.2 X lop3 ranged from 15 to 40 dB. The median value was 28 dB, with a 10 to 90 percent range of 14 dB. Clearly average power is a poor indicator of performance. Since the probability of exceeding a given fade depth decreases by a decade per 10 dB (Figure 6) the data of Figure 7imply that a smaller percentage of 25 dB average power fades correspond t o BER 2 1.2 X 10-3 thando 35 dB fades. This expectation is confirmed by the results shown in Figure 8. Only 10 percent of the 25 dB fade time resulted in BER 2 1.2 X lop3 ;at 35 dB the corresponding percentage was 70 percent. This indicates that the probability of experiencing dispersion within a faded channel grows significantly with fade depth, a result previously demonstrated by Babler.lS2

15

20

35 AVERAGE POlER R O E DEPTHIN dB

25

30

40

45

Fig. 7.

Correlation of BER > 1.2 X 10-3 with Received Power, Nondiversity-Horn Reflector, 6111-115 and 7119-7/28, 1917

100

: ;
60
BW
0 7 0

%I

zs
: 5

40

El
B

20

0
10

I5

20

25

30

u)

49

u w m m e m m a

Fig. 8.

BER as a Function of FadeDepth, Nondiversity-Horn Reflector, 6111-115 and 1/19-7/28, 1911

As observed previously, amplitude dispersion appeared to be a. goodindicationof BER performance. A #%ocessing algorithm described amplitude ,dispersion as the beak-to-peak amplitude difference in the22 samples measured every 1.1 MHz from 58.3 to 81.4 MHz. For this study, data were selected from the heaviest single fading period observed, which contained about 50 percentof the total, time duringwhich high BERs were obseived. The results?? are displayed as Figure 9 in statistical terms; the correlation between BER and amplitude dispersion is, very good. For example, 10 percent of the 5 dB dispersion cases, 50 percent of the 6.5 dB dispersion cases and 90 percent of the 8 dB dispersion cases correspond to a BER 2 1.2 X lop3. The BER is seen to threshold: 3 dB of dispersion has little result, and 8 dB ensures outage. This relationship essentially characterizes the response of the demodulator to amplitude dispersion. 5. DIVERSITY RESULTS Space diversity was implemented during the second part of the experiment byapplication of acophasing IF (70 MHz)

t t The long-haul objective is a factor ofmore 16 stringent.

ttt Provided by W.D. Rummler.

1846

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-27, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1979

0)

AVG POWER

&:COMBINER

1 0 1 2 1 4

PK-TO-PK IN BAND AMPLITUDE SPREAD IN dB

Fig. 9.

Dispersion Effect on BER Statistics, Nondiversity-Horn Reflector, 2 1 4 5 , 6 / 2 0 t o 0 2 0 0 , 6 / 2 1 , 1 9 7 7

e ) O N E SECOND BER

-6

-4
3 3 I 2
103

0.0

0.5

1 0 1.5 . 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 TIME IN MINUTES FROM 2445 AUG8,1977

4.5

5.0

-30 dB

Fig. 11. Digital Radio (78 Mbits/s, 6 GHz) Atlanta to PalmettoDiversityIF Combiner Time Series

0a PWR VIA UW ANT ;M

&AVE PWR OF COMBINER X:AVE PWR Vl4 HR ANT

, I

.S

3.0 2.5 35 4.0 TlYE IN MHUTES FROM 0532. AUG 9,1977

10

15

2.0

4 5

I 5.0

Fig. 10.

Digital RaQio (78 Mbits/s, 6 GHz) Atlanta to Palmetto Diversity-IF Combiner Time Series

combiner (see Figure 1). The two combiner inputs were the signals received on antennas separated by 30 ft and downconverted using a common local oscillator from the operating R F frequencytoIF. The average phase ofthe dish signal was adaptively changed in order to effect maximum power output from the sum of the two signals. The amplification gain from antenna waveguide output to the summing hybrid was constant and approximately equal for each of the twosignals.
5.I Sample Time Series
An example exhibiting combiner improvement in terms of average power is displayed in Figure 10.8 A 40 dBfade on the dish at 0.6 min is followed by separate 32 dB and 31 dB fades on the horn reflector at minutes 1.8 and 3.2 respectively. The
Q The dB scale is relative totheunfaded hornreflectorsignalat the combiner output; o n this scale the unfaded dish signal is -1 dB and the unfaded combined signal is +5.5 dB.

decorrelation is typicalof space diversity. During thedeep fades the combined output was that of the lesser faded antenna. When the signals from the two antennas were equal the combined output was approximately 6 dB higher. Even though each antenna faded sufficiently to cause digital errors without diversity, no errors were observed during this diversity protected interval. A combinertimesequence in whicherrors were experienced is displayed in Figure 11. Errors occurred from 1.6 to 3.2 min including 15-s interval > a of performance. The reason for this poor performance can be deduced from data illustrated in Figures 1l a t o 1 Id. The combiner power output was dominated by the horn reflector power (1 la) with, however, considerable dispersion (1 lb). This forces errors even as in the nondiversity case (Section 4). The dispersion from the dish antenna (1 IC)is extreme (> 20 dB maximum) due to an indand notch of time varying depth and frequency location. The dispersion from the horn reflector (1 Id) is a few dB at most during theerror occurrence interval. Therefore, even though the horn reflector was the stronger signal, the dispersive signal offered by the dish had a damaging effect. Clearly if either input t o an equal gain in-phase combiner is dispersive, the combiner outputwill most likely be di~persive.~

5.2 Statistics Summary probability distributions are displayed in Figure 12 for the I-s bit error rate (BER),-the average power of the

BARNETT: MULTIPATH FADING EFFECTS ON DIGITAL RADIO

1847
+

COYaYO.rm
HRMlPWR. DIVERSITY S

PWR

BER 0 AVG.PWR A 5 8 . 8 5 MHz 1 69.85 MHz PWR 0 8 0 . 8 5 MHz PWR

o DISH AM.PWR. A IDEAL SPACE

-LOG (BERI

-1 0.0

0 tiO.O t20.0 t30.0 t40.0 t50.0 FADE DEPTH IN dB RELATIVE TO COMBINER OUTPUT

FADE DEPTH IN dB RELATIVE TO UNFADED HORN R E N C T O R SIGNAL AT COMBINER INPUT

Fig. 12. Amplitude and

BER Statistics, Diversity-IF Combiner,

Fig, 13. AmplitudeStatistics, Diversity andNondiversity

816-9115,

1977

816-9115,

1977

during the nondiversity test period-which was a normal fading (faded) signal at the combiner output and the average power in a 200 kHz bandwidth centered on 58.85MHz, (j9.85 M H ~ , month-leads to an estimate of the overall combiner improveand 80.85 MHz. As in the nondiversity case the amplitude statistics are essentially identical, implying that the multipath fading is unbiased with respect to frequency. During the 41-day test period there were 1400 s with errors,1100 s withBER> 1.2 X and 370 s with BER > 1.2 X 10-3. All of the errored seconds were due t o fading; during nonfading periods the sample system ran error free. In fact, during One 1 5 - d a ~ there were Only two error seconds contributing a total of fewer than 16 errors. Supplementary BER statistics are:
Time Exceeded 6 )

ment for a typical fading month, 1000 COMBINER IMPROVEMENT = (BER. 1.2 x 10-3) (0.5)(370)

Since the short-haul outage objective was missed by a factor of 9 (Section 4.2) the combiner improvement is short of adequate by 50 percent.An additional improvement by increasing the antenna spacing to perhaps 40 feet would probably suffice. Diversity amplitudestatistics displayed in Figure 13 can be summarized as follows: 1. the dish statistic was about 1.4 dB poorer than the HR statistic, reflecting the 1 dB lower unfaded signal at the combiner input, 2 . the statistic describing the behavior ofanidealswitch (computer synthesizedresultofchoosing the leastfaded of the two antennas each sample time) is about 1 dB poorer than the measured combiner; theory predicts about 0.8 dB, 3. the synthesized ideal switch statistic is, at a 30 dB fade depth, a factor of four poorer than one would calculate .obtaining from two antennas of f t ~ e p a r a t i o n . ~ 30 Thiscalculatedspace diversity performance improvement (item 3) has been obtained in previous years measurements at Palmetto as well as at other radio stations. The discrepancy (during this period) suggests that fading during the diversity test period was more correlated than usual.

BER
>1.2

No. of Events

Avg. Duration
(S)

10-6

X 21.237 10-3

1100 370

80

14 10

The fade depth exceeded for the same cumulative interval as the digital outage time (BER 2 1.2 X was 32 dB; we term thisthe equivalentfademarginof thetest system when equipped with an IF combiner. Accumulated fading in this 41-day test period was approximately a factor of 2 higher than calculated for a heavy fading month (Figure 13). 5 Assuming that the dispersion characteristics of the fading were identical during the two test periods, and recalling (Section 4 , Figure 6) that there were 1000 s with a BER > 1.2 X

1848

IEEE TRANSACTIONS O N COMMUNICATIONS, VOL. COM-27, NO.

12, DECEMBER 1979

10

IO

15

20

25

30

40

45

WERPCf POWER FIDE DEPTH AT COMBINER OUTPUT IN dB

Fig. 14.

Correlation of BER > 1.2 X 10-3 with Received Power, Diversity-IF Combiner, 8/6-9/15, 1977

I
0

depths corresponding to BER 2- 1.2 X had a median of 28 dB with a 10 to 90percent range of 14 dB. (3) Modest in-band amplitude dispersion, a linear 0.2 dB/ MHz for example, was sufficient to cause the BER t o exceed 1X However, amplitude dispersion was found be a to good indicator of BER performance. Based on the fact that thepredominant dispersion variation is linear, we conclude that an adaptive linear amplitude equalizer would provide transmission performance improvement.6 (4) The measured non-diversity performance missed short haul outage objectives by a factor of nine. With space-diversity provided by 30 ft separated antennas andacophasing combiner, the performance was improved by a factor of six. We conjecture that either wider antenna separation or a shorter hoplengthorboth would have provided the requisiteperformance. (5) Engineering of digital radio systems t o meet performance objectives will require careful study of thetradeoffs between hop length,space-diversity/antenna separation, adaptive equalizers, and the sensitivityof the radio equipment t o frequency selective fading. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The study summarized here represents the efforts of many people. In particular, C. W. Lundgren planned the experiment, R. A. Hohmann and L. J. Morns installed and ran the equipment; G. A. Zimmerman designed the data acquisition system; Y. Y. Wang and M. V. Pursley did the data processing and W. D. Rummler provided Figure 9. REFERENCES

e
W

tiso
w x
O W

0
M

I.
I5

20

25

30

35

40

45

AVERAGE WWER FWE DEPTH AT COMBINER WTWT IN dB

Fig. 15.

BER Occurrence as a Function of Fade Depth, DiversityIF Combiner, 8/6-9/15, 1977

2.
3.

results are .displayedin Figures 14 and 15. The results are similar to the nondiversity case. Average powerfade depths corresponding to digital outage ranged from 20 dB t o 46 dB (Figure 14). The median value of 32 dB was identical to the equivalent fade margin, the 10 to 90 percent range extends from 22 to 39 dB. The reason fortheunexpectedly large density of error experiences in the 20 t o 25 dB fade range is not known. The fraction of average powerfade timecorresponding to BER 2- 1.2 X lop3 (Figure 15) is more dependent upon average fade depth, in contrast to the nondiversity case (Figure 3). It varies from a few percent in the 20to 28 dBfade depth range t o 50 percent at 35 dB fades.

4.

5.

6.

G. M. Babler, Selectively Faded Nondiversity Space and Diversity Narrowband Microwave Channels, BSTJ. Vol. 52. No. 2 (February 1973). pp. 239-261. G. M. Babler. A Study of Frequency Selective Fading fora Microwave Line-of-SightNarrowbandRadio Channel, BSTJ. Vol. 51. No. 3 (March 1972). pp. 73 1-757. W . T. Barnett, MultipathPropagationat 4, 6 . and I I GHz. BSTJ. Vol. 51, No. 2 (February 1972). pp. 321-361. A. Vigants, Space DiversityEngineering. BSTJ, Vol. 54, (January 1975). pp. 103-141. Y. Y . Wang, Space Diversity Combining For 6 GHz Digital Radio, International Conference on Communication.June1979, Conference Record, pp. 48.2.1-48.2.6. T. S . Giuffrida, Measuiements of the Effects of Propagation on Digital Radio Systems Equipped with Space Diversity and Adaptive Equilization, International Conference on Communication, 1979, June Conference Record, pp. 48. I . 1-48.1.6.

*
William T. Barnett (S157-M58),B.S.E.E., 1958, Illinois Institute of Technology; M.S.E.E., 1960, New York University; Western Electric . Mr. 1953-1958; Bell Laboratories 1958Barnett has worked problems on related to microwave radio relay and satellite systems. Since 1966, he has supervised a group concernedwithpropagationproblems and transmission performance of FM radio, SSBAM radio, satellite systems, and digital radio.

6. CONCLUSIONS
(1) The experimental results demonstrated that multipath fadinghasa dramatic effect on 8 PSK high capacity digital radio. ( 2 ) The traditional average powerfade depth was a poor indicatorofbit-error-rate performance. Average power fade