The dry radome attenuation, caused by the transmission loss through the radome wall, is of the order of few tenths of dB and is normally precisely measured by the manufacturer. When rain hits the radome, an excess signal attenuation is caused by the water on its surface. The water distribution on the radome is influenced by several factors including rainfall rate, making it very challenging to estimate the actual attenuation under normal operating conditions.
In this paper we present a relatively simple experimental procedure to estimate the excess attenuation caused by a wet radome, to obtain a fit to some existing theoretical models of transmission loss through a continuous water layer.
Using radar reflectivity measurements at close ranges and data collected with a disdrometer, we evaluated the attenuation caused by the radome at different rain intensity regimes. Two-way attenuation was parameterized with rainfall rate, and compared to experimental results. These results if found repeatable, could be used for an operational correction of the reflectivity factor. A model for operation correction for radome attenuation was developed for application with the ARPA X band radar (ARX).
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