By James Careless
Satellite customers do not want to lose any transmission signals--but it happens. The challenge facing service providers and equipment manufacturers is providing turnkey solutions to combat such problems. While certain signal glitches remain unfixable, others can be corrected. From rain fade issues to technical errors, satellite technology advancements are transporting more content through space without it being lost in space.
Standing in the way of this delivery is interference. After all, at the core of any satellite business is signal delivery. If unsuccessful at getting voice, data and video transmitted to the client's destination, then those clients will not be expanding their business relations at contract renewal time. Regardless if caused by man or nature, interference can seriously diminish the power of a satellite transmission, or block it entirely. In either case, finding a way to "clear up the static" is important for satellite users, and a source of profit for equipment manufacturers and content distributors.
Nature's Onslaught
Rain attenuation, solar energy and heavy static are examples of how Mother Nature can interfere with satellite transmissions. Attenuation, or rain fade as it is more commonly referred to, occurs when a passing electromagnetic wave gives up energy to the liquid in a raindrop. The loosely bound molecules of water absorb energy from the electromagnetic signals. Airborne water can reflect or absorb satellite transmissions and this rain fade is what causes many Ku-band DBS receives to go dark during heavy storms. On the ground, frozen water in the form of ice and snow can collect inside a satellite antenna and attenuate its transmit/receive capabilities to nothing.
To combat such obstacles posed by Mother Nature, manufacturers have brought to market equipment to thaw nature's chill. Even though rain fade is an unavoidable fact of satellite life, especially in more tropical regions of the world where torrential downpours more readily occur, snow and ice, however, can be managed. One such company fighting the elements is Surface Heating Systems Ltd. (SHS) out of the United Kingdom. SHS has designed an innovative de-icing system used by Andrew Corp. for its new 3.7m antenna.
"This proved to be different to the normal system manufactured, as each petal has to be split into three to allow for the strengthening bars that run across each petal," says Michael Cummings, SHS director. "We achieved this by manufacturing light weight, self-adhesive heating panels, which are supplied pre-connected, ensuring that the installation time and subsequent cost is kept to a minimum."
W.B. Walton Enterprises also sells a range of protective snow shield and hot air heaters to keep antennas free of frozen water. "Snow in your reflector can take you off air," says Richard Gomrick, Walton's vice president of sales and marketing. "Think of it as a form of rain fade, which protective covers and heat can dispel."
Energy bursts generated by the sun can seriously interfere with satellite RF (radio frequency) transmissions, or scramble them entirely. In the most extreme cases, solar storms can damage or disable satellites themselves. Such was the apparent fate of Telstar 401 in 1997. It failed after being hammered by a solar ejection of magnetically charged helium and hydrogen carrying an electrical charge estimated at 1 million amps.
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