Journal of Advances in Science and Engineering 1 (2018), 33-38 ISSN: 2636-607X Please, cite this article as: Osahenvemwen, O. A. & Omatahunde, B. E. (2018). Impacts of Weather and Environmental Conditions on Mobile Communication Signals, Journal of Advances in Science and Engineering, 1(1), 33-38. https://doi.org/10.37121/jase.v1i1.8 Journal of Advances in Science and Engineering (JASE) Impacts of Weather and Environmental Conditions on Mobile Communication Signals a Osahenvemwen, O. A. & b Omatahunde, B. E. a,b Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria osahenvemwenaustin@ymail.com Abstract Keywords The impacts of weather and environmental conditions on mobile communication signals were determined in this study. A Glo mobile communication network operating in the 900MHz band was considered. The Glo fixed base transceiver station (BTS) location at Gloworld in Benin City was considered. A frequency-signal tracker software, version 2.5.1 was installed and configured into a notebook Intel palm top, relative parameters data were obtained from 200 meters from the Glo BTS from 28 th of July to 31 st of August 2016, with data obtained hourly. Morning, afternoon and evening, and dry weather, fog weather and raining conditions was based on the statistical central tendency parameters. The average refractivity gradient observed was -61.3 N/km. It was observed that dry weather, signal strength variation was within 32 dBm, fog, variation was within 34 dBm range, while the variation of rain was within 38 dBm range indicating higher variation. It was observed that the more the mobile station move away from the BTS the higher the signal loss and that temperature and refractivity gradient has 0.50 and 0.42 positive correlations. In addition, relative humidity and pressure possesses negative correlations of -0.50 and -0.44 respectively. Received 11January 2018; accepted 26 April 2018; published 30 April 2018. ISSN: 2636-607X Base transceiver station Environmental variables GSM signal strength Refractivity gradient Weather conditions Copyright © 2018 The Authors. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) 1. Introduction To ensure large number of mobile subscribers are being accommodated in a mobile cellular system low-power wireless transmitters are being deployed to create cells. The transmitter power level in a cell is used to determine subscriber density and demand with in a specific region. As mobile subscribers migrate from one cell to another, their conversations channels are handed off between the cells. Transmission channels deployed in one cell can also be reused in other distance cells. Hence, larger mobile subscribers can be accommodated in a wide range of radio frequencies. The mobile stations are linked with base station communication through the uplink and down link transmission channels. The base station covering a specific geographical area called a cell is allocated with a group of radio channels. Moreover, the issue of interference of signal between close cells must be within tolerable limits (Shoewu et al., 2014). The radio signal propagation characteristics are diffraction, reflection and scattering. These radio signal phenomenon can cause signal distortion, resulting to signal fading and propagation losses (Dalip & Kumar, 2014). In the establishment of any wireless or radio communication system, it is important to study the propagation features of the site and possible causes of signal loss. This study is aimed at analysing the impacts and ways of overcoming them. Although, the uplink and downlink are bidirectional between mobile station and base station, the system is designed to supply adequate signal strength from the base station to mobile station (Dalip & Kumar, 2014; Osahenvemwen & Omorogiuwa, 2013). The signal strength received by the mobile station depends on the distance from the base station, condition of weather and the prevailing environmental meteorology (Omorogiuwa & Okundamiya, 2015). In the cellular system design, the signal strength plays a vital role between the mobile station and the base station. A base station is cited in such a way that it provides enough signal for the operation of a mobile station within it coverage area (Emeruwa, 2015). A crucial component of any propagation environment is the path loss.