Radio propagation will strongly influence the design of the antenna and front-end components of E-band point-to-point communication systems. Based on the ITU rain model, the rain attenuation is estimated in a statistical sense and it is concluded that for backhaul links of 1–10 km, antennas with a gain of 49.5 dBi are required. Moreover, depolarization can be a limiting factor for backhaul systems that are employing orthogonal polarization in order to improve capacity. Antenna mast movement becomes a relevant problem due to the narrow beamwidth of the high gain antennas, which is around 0.7◦ . We propose to implement a focal plane array as feed for the parabolic reflector antenna. This is to tackle the mast movement by electronic beam steering and to increase EIRP by increasing the number of active antenna elements, and to assist the mechanical alignment during installation.