Comments on "Aids for the Gross Design of Satellite Communication Systems"

In the recently published paper by Northrop named above (ibid., COM-14, pp. 45-56 February 1966), nomograms are used to obtain solutions to individual aspects of the satellite communication problem. It may perhaps be of interest to note that by making a four-fold application of the parallel-line type of nomogram [2] , [3], one can display most of the parameters in Northrop´s design equation (20) without introducing too much nomographic complication. A nomogram is shown that was produced for the particular case of the slant-range being fixed. However, the frequency scale f could be replaced by a freespace path loss LFS scale by noting that f = 0.1 Gc/s corresponds to LFS = 164.9 dB, f = 1.0 Gc/s corresponds to LFS = 154.9 dB, and 10 Gc/s corresponds to LFS = 204.9 dB.