By considering the global fading process on the link caused by rain attenuation and amplitude scintillations, particularly at K/sub a/ band, it is possible to derive a long-term statistical model of the satellite channel capacity. The four-parameter distribution, which combines amplitude scintillations and rain fade within an up/down link system, is presented. Also presented are the degradation (and improvement) of bit error rate (BER) in the presence of amplitude scintillations, thus complementing the flat fade effect due to rain only. By implementation of adaptive communication systems, a more efficient channel capacity utilization is possible. The concepts and the use of novel analytical expressions combining a log-normal model of rain fade with a Moulsley-Vilar distribution for scintillations are illustrated. These are then applied to a very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) example of a 29/19-GHz digital communications link through the Olympus satellite using M-ary phase shift keying (PSK) modulation schemes.>