Category Archives: General

SATCOM system testing is the disciplined process of verifying that every element in a satellite communications chain—antenna, feed, waveguide, LNA/LNB, block upconverter, high-power amplifier, modem, and the baseband behind it—meets its specified performance before, during, and after integration. It sits at the intersection of RF engineering, link budget analysis, and ground segment operations. For anyone… Read More: The Complete Guide to SATCOM System Testing »

How to Verify LNA Noise Figure and Gain Stability Across Temperature When the Datasheet Only Quotes 25°C 14:30 local in Tromsø, late January. Wind off the Norwegian Sea at 18 m/s, the feed horn rimed over, and the LNA enclosure has dropped to -34°C. Six hours ago that same LNA sat at -11°C under clear… Read More: How to Verify LNA Noise Figure and Gain Stability Across… »

Testing a satellite communications (SATCOM) system is not a single event. It is a disciplined sequence of verification steps that begins on the bench and ends only when the terminal is silent in its final orbit. For engineers working in C-band through Ka-band—whether on a hardened military ground terminal, a commercial teleport, or a flyaway… Read More: The Pragmatic Engineer’s Guide to SATCOM System Testing »

If you crack open any satellite link budget, the number that stares back at you—the one that actually tells you whether the whole thing will work—is Carrier-to-Noise Ratio. C/N, or CNR if you prefer. It’s the power of the received carrier divided by the noise power in the same bandwidth, measured before any demodulator or… Read More: Why Carrier-to-Noise Ratio Is the Metric That Matters Most »

If you’ve spent any time aligning a dish or staring at a spectrum analyser, you’ll know that raw signal power tells you almost nothing useful. A strong carrier can still deliver a lousy picture if the noise floor is riding high. That’s why, in satellite RF engineering, we don’t obsess over signal level in isolation.… Read More: Why Carrier-to-Noise Ratio Is the Metric That Matters Most in… »

Walk through any teleport control room and you’ll hear people quoting signal levels in dBm like they’re reading from a menu. But the number that actually decides whether a link stays up or falls apart is the carrier-to-noise ratio. C/N sits at the crossroads of RF power, antenna gain, system noise temperature, and bandwidth—and yet… Read More: Why Carrier-to-Noise Ratio Is the Real Figure of Merit in… »

How to Build a Satellite Interference Hunting Runbook That Works at 3 a.m. By Henrik Lindqvist The call comes at 02:47. A carrier on transponder 7B is down 3.2 dB from its nominal C/N, and the NOC is seeing elevated BER on two VSAT remotes in the eastern beam. The on-call technician has been with… Read More: How to Build a Satellite Interference Hunting Runbook That Works… »

If you spend enough time around satellite ground segments, you’ll hear a lot of numbers thrown around: EIRP, G/T, flux density, symbol rates, BER. But there’s one metric that sits quietly at the center of every link budget, and if you ignore it, nothing else matters. That metric is Carrier-to-Noise Ratio, or C/N. It’s the… Read More: Carrier-to-Noise Ratio: The One Number That Tells You If Your… »