Theme: A wide range of radio wave propagation phenomena, including effects due to climatic factors, have a significant impact on radiocommunication systems performance, availability and reliability, the efficient use of the congested radio spectrum, and on system and network planning. These phenomena affect all terrestrial and satellite services, including new broadband radiocommunication systems.
Providing radio services in an ever increasingly congested and expensive radio spectrum requires that such services be planned to operate with optimum efficiency, ensuring that the service is provided in an adequate manner using the minimum amount of radio spectrum, and avoiding harmful interference to and from other systems.
This special issue of the ITU Journal will provide the latest developments concerning radio wave propagation modelling and phenomena that are relevant to the planning and deployment of advanced future radiocommunication systems and the efficient use of the radio spectrum.
Keywords: radio wave propagation modelling, attenuation, radiometeorology, interference, field strength measurement, terrain height database, surface feature database, statistical modelling, radio spectrum, radio network planning, radio network optimization, interference, propagation path, radio noise, ionospheric propagation, ray tracing.
