AbstractThis paper outlines the performance of a 10 Gbit/s rectangular 16-quadrature amplitude modulation–based radio over free space optical communication system. Here, 60 GHz radio frequency–modulated signal is propagated through a 1550-nm free space optical link. The gamma–gamma distribution is used for the channel modeling of weak to strong atmospheric turbulence. The reported constellation plots and eye patterns are attributed to impairment factors in adverse conditions of atmosphere. The evaluation is carried out that the variation in average error vector magnitude in the range of 1.45–1.63% and equivalent symbol error rate of 0.019–0.023 are obtained for a clear atmosphere compared to the turbulent link of 0.2–1 km, respectively.