Glossary

Access The method of channel sharing or utilisation of a single frequency or time slot by several locations.

AGC See Automatic Gain Control.

Amplifier A device used to increase the strength of electrical signals.

Analogue A form of storing, processing or transmitting information through a continuous variable (rather than
pulsed) signal.

Antenna Device which picks up and delivers satellite signals to a receiver, most commonly a dish.

Aperture A cross sectional area of the antenna which is exposed to the satellite signal.

Apogee The point in a satellite's orbit when it is at its furthest distance from the Earth.

Asymmetric Transmission Transmission where the required bit rate for the forward path and the return path is different e.g. high
forward path and low return path data rate.

Attenuation A decrease in the power of a received signal due to loss through lines, equipment or other transmission
devices. Usually measured in dB.

Attitude Control Maintenance of the satellite's orientation with respect to the Earth and the sun.

Automatic Gain Control A circuit which automatically controls the gain of an amplifier so that the output signal level is virtually
constant for varying input signal levels.

Availability Reliability of a communications link, typically expressed by the percentage of time e.g. 99.99% equals
to a downtime of 9 hours per year.

Azimuth The horizontal angle for the antenna to point to the satellite. It is in clockwise direction from the true
north.
B
Bandwidth A range of frequencies, expressed in Hz occupied by a modulated carrier on the range of frequencies
which can be transmitted through a communications system. Bandwidth is one measure of the
information carrying capacity of a transponder. The wider the bandwidth, the more information which
can be transmitted. The bandwidth of the communications system must be at least as wide as the
signal being transmitted.

Baseband The frequency band which contains the basic, low frequency information before modulation and after
demodulation.

Beacon Low-power carrier transmitted by a satellite which supplies the controlling engineers on the ground with
a means of monitoring telemetry data, tracking the satellite or conducting propagation experiments.

Beam The directed electromagnetic rays emanating from the spacecraft. Typically refers to aggregates of
these rays such as China (coverage) beam or global (coverage) beam.

BER See Bit Error Rate.

Bit A single unit of information. Often referred to as a 1 or 0 in the binary system and as an "on" or "off"
state in computer operations.

Bit Error Rate The fraction of a sequence of message bits that are in error. It denotes the quality of a received
demodulated digital signal. The lower the rate, the better the signal e.g. a BER of 10-4 means one error
in every 10,000 bits.

Bit Rate Amount of digital information transmitted in a certain period of time, expressed in bits per second (bps)

BOL Beginning of Life of a satellite.