A Measurement of the MARISAT L-Band Signals at Low Elevation Angles Onboard Mobil Aero

Author

Fang, D.J. ; Tseng, F.T. ; Calvit, T.O.

Author_Institution

COMSAT Laboratories, Clarksburg, MD, USA

Volume

30

Issue

2

fYear

1982

fDate

2/1/1982 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

359

Lastpage

365

Abstract

The MARISAT-to-ship $L$ -band signals used in maritime mobile satellite communications service are degraded by fading and scintillation at low elevation angles. These degradations are attributed to multipath effects arising from ionospheric, tropospheric, and/or sea surface diffractions. To characterize such degradations, measurements were made at the Southbury earth station and onboard the S.S. Mobil Aero while the ship was en route from Norfolk, VA, to Texas City, TX. Measurements include monitoring the carrier-to-noise ratio ( $C/N$ ) of time-division multiplex/time-division multiple access (TDM/TDMA) voice carriers and measuring the bit error rate (BER) of 2400/1200 bit/s digital data transmissions through a voice channel. Results indicated that both $C/N$ and BER are severely degraded at elevation angles below 5° due to propagation anomalies. Information useful for design considerations of future maritime communications systems is summarized.

Keywords

Fading channels; Ionospheric propagation; Marine-vehicle communication; Satellite communication, propagation; Sea surface electromagnetic scattering; Tropospheric radio propagation; UHF radio propagation; Bit error rate; Degradation; Diffraction; Fading; L-band; Marine vehicles; Satellite communication; Satellite ground stations; Sea measurements; Sea surface;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0090-6778

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TCOM.1982.1095466

Filename

1095466