Allnutt, Richard Mallory2014-03-142014-03-141995-11-03etd-10202005-102841http://hdl.handle.net/10919/40049This document discusses the measurements conducted at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA, and at COMSAT Labs, in Clarksburg MD, to determine the impact of multipath fading upon a circularly polarized L-Band satellite-to-handheld communications system using an omni-directional antenna. A significant finding was that motion of the satellite could induce fades of up to lOdB, well in excess of the small link margins available to satellite-to-handheld systems (typically ≤ 3dB). A method for ameliorating multi path fading was then sought. It was also found that the multipath fading effect was significantly different at as small a distance as half a wavelength from the original antenna position. Multipath signals could actually combine at the new position to form a small increase in signal to noise ratio (S/N), rather than a fade of as much as 16dB. Therefore it was determined that a small-scale antenna diversity system might offer a solution to the problem of multipath fading.viii, 221 leavesBTDapplication/pdfenIn CopyrightLD5655.V856 1995.A556Artificial satellites in telecommunicationDissertationhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-10202005-102841/