How To Maintain The Earth Station Antennas?

The simple maintenance of earth station antenna helps to minimize the antenna failure probability and extend the antenna life. For the proper functioning of the antenna, it is required to maintain the antenna on the regular basis.

An appropriate maintenance planning of Earth Stations Antennas is a type of commercial insurance. Always check the completion of the whole structure. Try to  check the electrical performance to reduce the occurrence of antenna failure. To maintain the antenna, you need to follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Surface Maintenance

It is required to check the complete paint surface and electroplating surface regularly.  You can use a metal wire brush or abrasive paper to rub the rust spot on the electroplating surface. Always coat a layer of zinc-rich coating which does not require the complete clearance of the rust.

2. Antenna Fasteners

The users must tighten the loose nuts and replace the lost, rust and corrosive components because nuts, bolts, and rivets are usually affected by the atmospheric effect.

3. Ground

The antenna and bracket must be grounded to prevent the lightning strikes. Try to check if the mechanics of the grounding system and no mechanical connection are connected or not.

4. Cable and connector

Intermediate facility link cable helps to transmit the signal between the antenna and computer room. Inspect if these cables are damaged or not. If you find anything wrong with insertion loss, then check whether the cables need to be replaced or be repaired.

5. Shutdown Maintenance

Whether the antenna stops working or not, some maintenance is always required on the regular basis, just to check the functioning of the antenna.

Always keep a maintenance record. When you start installing the antenna, leave a  record with date and photos. Thus, this article can help you to know how you can maintain the earth station antenna in a proper way.

An Insight Into The Common Uses Of Satellites

Satellite communications links add capacity to the present communication system and provide additional alternate routing for communication traffic.  Satellite is composed of three separate units that is fuel system, the satellite and telemetry controls and the transponder. Satellite link is a long distance link that interconnects switching centers at different locations.

Satellite phones are available where phone signal is transmitted to an orbiting satellite and then comes back to earth. Satellites are used for global satellite communication. Global communication is used to describe ways to connect, relate and mobilize across geographic, economic and cultural divides. The other common uses of satellites are:

Television

Satellites are the backbone of cable and network TV, it sends television signals directly to homes. The signal is sent from a central station to smaller stations that send the signals locally via cables.

Telephones

Satellites provide routed phone communications on airplanes and also provide voice communication for rural areas and areas where phone lines are damaged after some accident. Primary timing source for cell phones and pagers are also provided by satellites.

Navigation

Navstar Global Positioning Systems (known colloquially as GPS) is a satellite-based navigation system. GPS locators are increasingly included inside car services and allow car-share services. Further use of GPS based system is that it is used by civilians and military for navigation on land, sea and air and other areas where other navigation tools may not exist.

Weather

Satellites helps meteorologists to see weather on a global scale, which in turn helps them to follow the effects of phenomena like volcanic eruptions and burning oil fields  and many other.

Many satellites are in operation for different purpose. The operational satellites provide many of the services that are quite important for everyone. Without them the services would not be so nearly to achieve by other means.

Types of Satellite Communication System

Satellite communication system uses satellite technology for communications. The services provided by satellite communications are internet, voice and video calling, fax, radio channels, military applications and television.

In satellite communication, transferring of signal between the receiver and sender is done with the help of satellite. The signal is a beam of modulated microwaves sent towards the satellite. Then the signal is amplified by satellite and sent back to the antenna of the receiver present on the earth’s surface.This type of communication is called space communication.

Satellite communications can provide communication capabilities spanning long distances and can operate under conditions which are inoperable for other forms of communication.There are around 2,000 communications satellites present in Earth’s orbit, used by both government and private organizations.

Two types of satellites which are used commonly in satellite communication are active and passive satellites:-

Passive satellites: It is like a plastic balloon with a metal coated over it. This sphere reflects the microwave signals coming from one location of the earth to another one. This is also called passive sphere. Moon is passive satellite of the earth.

Active satellites: It basically amplifies the microwave signals coming. In active satellites a receiver, an antenna system, power supply, transmitter is used. These satellites are also called as transponders. Microwaves are generated by the transmitters fitted on the earth.

These rays are then received by the transponders attached to the satellite. After amplifying, these signals are then transmitted back to earth. This sending can be done at the same time or after some delay. These amplified signals are later stored in the memory of the satellites, when earth faces the satellite. Afterwards satellite sends the signals to earth.

Some active satellites also have recording and programming features. Then these recordings can be easily watched. The signals that come from the satellite are of very low intensity. Their receivers then amplify these signals themselves. After amplification they become available for further use.