The Westin Bonaventure Hotel

I’m the sort of person who likes to plan, but despite my best intentions life always seems to be event-driven. Such is the case today, which is why I’m writing this. Let me explain:

I’m on LinkedIn and am a member of some 30+ Groups relating to satellite communications. Being a helpful sort of guy I try to answer questions posed by Group members if they relate to a topic that I know something about. Such was the case today when I saw that someone had posed the question along the lines “What is the difference between the use of a Klystron and a TWTA in an earth station transmitter”?
Well, that’s right up my street. I remembered writing a paper related to this way back in 1981. Even though that was 30 years ago and technology evolves, the underlying physics remains the same.

The paper was entitled “Design of a High Power Earth Station Transmitter for the Band 7.9 to 8.4 GHz”. As you’ll all know that is one of the main uplink bands (X-Band) used for military satellite communications and the paper arose out of some work I did on a contract for a particular Government [Read more…]