Improving reliability of a satellite ground station transmitter

A few years ago, MEC developed a 12.5 kW, 7.7 to 8.4 GHz TWT and Transmitter Power Supply for use in ground stations for satellite communications. Because it was necessary to build the power supply and TWT simultaneously, and since the TWT was an order of magnitude higher in power output than existing TWT´s at that time, and ultra-conservative approach was used in the design of the power supply and its associated protection and nine input fault channels--circuitry so complex and sensitive that many turnoffs of the equipment resulted from spurious triggers in the system alone.