The 5-foot diameter dish for reception of the 1.6 GHz satellite signals produces a 26 dB Gain, with a beamwidth of 8°. The 5-foot dish is capable of satellite reception within 1° of the horizontal.  The 3-foot dish is adequate for most installations, significantly reduces cost and only reduces the effective reception angle by approximately 2° on each side (to approximately 174°).

The rotator maintains precision tracking at the high speed encountered with polar orbiting satellites directly overhead. It is completely weatherproofed with a combination of high tech moisture seals.  For either the 3' or 5' parabolic system the design criteria is to withstand winds of 70 knots with a fully iced over antenna.

1.6 GHz Low Noise single state Field Effected Transistor (GaAs-Fet). Contains triple stage band pass filter and gain controller. It has internal buffering and is antenna mounted.

Pre-amplifier specifications
Noise less than 1.0 dB
Gain 14 dB +/- 2 dB
1 dB bandwidth +/- 1 MHz
3 dB bandwidth +/- 2 MHz
6 dB bandwidth +/- 3 MHz
30 dB bandwidth +/- 10 MHz

Operating voltage 10 – 16 VDC
Consumption @ 12 VDC 10 – 16 [mA]
Entry Exit Impedance 50 / 75 Ohms
Entry Exit Mismatch 40–100 Ohms

Low loss microwave coaxial cable. Faraday cage effect and electrical feed for pre-amplifier is provided by charging the internal conductor with 12 VDC. A distance of 40 meters between antenna and station is possible without additional amplification.

Necessary for coaxial cable distances greater than 40 meters. Electrical feed is from the charged central conductor of the coaxial cable. Several line amplifiers in the cable are possible for achieving separations between antenna and station out to approximately 100m.

The input 1.6 GHz signal is downconverted to frequencies operable by the digital radio systems. Voltage and frequency, ready to enter the computer are output. Digital signal processing architecture throughout maintains fidelity of 10 bit data. Oscillators are inside the sealed cabinet and protected from atmospheric conditions.

The incoming converted digital radio wave is converted to signal voltages for entry into the local bus of the main computer at baud rates of 6 Mb / min.

The type 1 Servo system receives digital control signals from SASI software and outputs electrical control voltages to satellite rotator.