## 1 Introduction
### Rainfall Estimation Methods
A new algorithm based on short-time Fourier transform (STFT) was proposed for wet/dry classification on five CML links. The correlation reached 0.81 for the link gauge comparison. * Burkina Faso: less than 6 years after its first implementation, this new technology was initiated and tested for the first time in Africa. The implementation was performed during the monsoon season of 2012-2013, between two towers 29 km apart, between Korsimoro and Kaya, two cities of Burkina Faso. The rainfall amount during this period were quantified and compared with conventional rain gauge measurements. The experiment was highly successful, and the effectiveness of the method was demonstrated [16]. Due to the sparseness of weather station networks and the lack of weather radars in developing countries, the additional precipitation information derived from the CML is particularly important in African, Southeast Asian, and Latin American countries. When the TOP-RainCell technology was first implemented in 2012, the data were stored at the mobile phone operator's site and periodically retrieved on a USB stick and transferred to the laboratory. As this was the early days of this technology, this was how performance data was collected for rainfall quantifications [17; 19; 20]. This data acquisition approach may result in limited or irregular access to the data. As time went on, relations with the operators became stronger and more trusting, and the use of a significant number of microwave links began to be considered. Likewise, the collection technique and quantification methods improved with a growing number of laboratories around the world [10; 12; 20; 21; 22] and TOP-RainCell in Burkina Faso. Several teams have set up continuous data acquisition systems, for collecting CML power levels, either serially [21] or in parallel [22]. In 2015, [PERSON] et al. [21] proposed a custom data acquisition software running within an operator's CML network. This software is only capable of serial data acquisition and does not appear to be suitable to provide data for a large number of CMLs with consistently high temporal resolution. In Germany [22], a parallel data collection system that allows simultaneously access and record data of several CMLs has been implemented. However, the data are stored by the mobile phone operator and researchers use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) link from the laboratory to gain access to the data server located in the cell phone operator site. Unlike these two CML data acquisition systems, TOP-RainCell undertook to install its own high frequency transmission/reception device: on the roof of the LA.M.E laboratory building was installed one of the two antennas, while the second one was installed in the telephony network of Telecel Faso to directly collect the performance data, as illustrated in Figure 1 below. The CML data collection system presented in this paper is the first one to be installed in a research laboratory. This system records in real-time acquisition the power levels of the CMLs of the mobile phone operator Telecel Faso. These data will subsequently be used in future work, to quantify rainfall in Burkina Faso. In the following, we describe in detail the acquisition system and show data from this system.