Citation
Abstract
The Spectrum Engineering Group conducted a series of terrestrial interference tests at Goldstone, California, on October 23–25, 2009, using Deep Space Station (DSS)–13 to receive at 32 GHz. The role of interfering emitter was played by a 1-W transmitter and a 1-m dish antenna. Three locations were used for the emitter: 2.1 km distant from DSS-13 with line of sight (LOS), 3.8 km distant without LOS, and 32.4 km distant without LOS. At the two latter locations, the LOS was blocked by hills near DSS-13. At each location, the emitter antenna was first pointed toward DSS-13 and the power received at DSS-13 was measured. (For the locations without LOS, the emitter antenna was pointed along the great circle path toward DSS-13.) Then the emitter antenna was pointed away from DSS-13 along an azimuthal direction (that is, horizontally) in order to measure the resulting decrease in received power. Measured data indicated that when the emitter antenna was pointed toward DSS-13, the measured received power agreed to within about 3 dB of the calculated received power. The calculated received power was based on the propagation loss models of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). More importantly, it was found that when the emitter antenna was pointed away from DSS-13, the received power decreased more slowly with azimuthal angular offset for the two locations with no LOS, relative to the LOS case. The lesson from this is that for Deep Space Network (DSN) antennas to be adequately protected from trans-horizon interferers, interferer antennas should be pointed away from the great circle path to the DSS by a substantial offset.
Details
- Volume
- 42-186
- Published
- August 15, 2011
- Pages
- 1–12
- File Size
- 1.5 MB