Site Diversity Switching Strategies for Q-Band SatCom Systems Using Conditional Probability Fields

Satellite links above 20 GHz suffer severe rain fades, making site diversity essential to guarantee the target availability and performance levels. This paper evaluates reactive and conditional probability-based switching strategies using long-term Q-band data collected in two Italian sites in the framework of the Alphasat Aldo Paraboni propagation experiment. Results show that all strategies outperform singlesite operation. Specifically, the simple reactive method maximizes fade protection but incurs frequent outages, while conditional based approaches prove to reduce switching overhead and provide more stable performance with only minor efficiency loss.