Ricerc@Sapienza

Scintillations affect the propagated signal with an unwanted aleatory oscillation at the receiver. A first analysis of data acquired from Alphasat Q-band receiver station, located in Spino d'Adda (Italy), is performed. Correlation between meteorological measurements at the ground and measured scintillation from the Q-band beacon receiver (i.e., fluctuation of the received electromagnetic field) is investigated. Radiosounding data from north Italy station of "Milano Linate" have been collected for the entire year 2015 and used to calculate the refractive index structure constant.

The AlphaSat TDP5 experiment, also now as Aldo Paraboni, is a scientific experiment held by the European Space Agency (ESA) to investigate radio propagation channel in the Ka and Q bands. The AlphaSat satellite was launched in orbit in 2013 and since then several European research group have been monitoring the received beacon signals to model physical effects of the atmosphere on the transmitted electromagnetic field. This article is aimed to describe the AlphaSat receiving station in Rome, focusing on the latest upgrade of the Ka-band receiver.

High frequencies in the microwave spectrum are nowadays no more just con ned to telemetry and remote sensing applications. Electromagnetic propagation at frequencies above 6 GHz for ICT end-user application is quickly becoming a reality opening the door to the world of millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths. Due to the high frequencies and large bandwidths requested for new devices, the design of the communication links to grant the appropriate service is now critical, especially for Satellite to Earth links.