International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 21, 2002 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / A series of RF channel flight characterization tests were recently run to benchmark multi-path performance of high-speed quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) over the ocean surface. The modulation format was differential-phase/absolute-amplitude two level polar 16 QAM. The bit rate was 100 Megabits per second with a symbol period of 40nS. An aircraft radiated the test signal at 5 different altitudes. It made two inward flights, on two different days, at each altitude with vertical and horizontal polarization, respectively. Receivers, using circular antenna polarization, were in two different locations. Analysis of the resulting data shows flat fading and frequency selective fading effects.