Long distance radio systems at 11 GHz are considered with respect to rain outage. Conventional tandem systems and simple route diversity systems are analyzed and compared on the basis of rain attenuation statistics obtained from radar observations. The comparisons appear to be very favorable to diversity systems in terms of the number of repeaters. Unfortunately, the available descriptions of joint probabilities of attenuation for pairs of radio paths allow only conservative analysis of very simple diversity systems, so that effective designs are not yet possible. Therefore, the need for further investigations on intense precipitation patterns still exists.