Due to the complexity of the composite fading channel, a new simplified channel model is proposed to analyze the bit error ratio（BER） performance of the distributed antenna system （DAS）. First, instead of the gamma-log-normal distribution, the log-normal distribution is applied to describe the output signal to noise ratio（SNR） after maximal ratio combining （MRC） at the receiver. Then, assuming that the channel state information（CSI） is available to the transmitter, by employing the Gauss-Hermite integral, an approximate analytical expression of the BER is derived for the downlink of the DAS with antenna selective transmission and MRC. Finally, the results of a Monte Carlo simulation show that the analytical results match the simulation results. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed approximate channel model is effective and accurate, and the derived analytical expression can be used to evaluate the real system performance.
