Midterm Exam : Satellite and Terrestrial Communication Systems

(150 minutes)

1. You are testing a new 20 GHz satellite link system that has 10 dB for rain fading
of extra “clear sky" margin built into its link budget. Estimate the minimum rain
rate, R that knocks out this satellite link as well as the targeted link reliability
99.99%. Assume an average storm height of 1 km and an approximate look
angle of 45o in all your calculations/ The parameters of the specific rain
attenuation (dB/km) on this frequency are k = 0:0751 and α = 1.099.

2. A building 20 m high obstructs the Line of Sight path between a transmitting

antenna, 13 m high and mobile 2 m high. The distance between the transmitter
and the building is 500 m and that between the building and the receiver is 300
m. Ignoring the presence of ground, determine the total path loss at a frequency
of 1 GHz. Approximate the slant distances with horizontal distances at
appropriate places. Hint: for calculating diffraction use this formula :
3. The noise level reduced to the input of a spectrum analyzer with 1 MHz (noise)
bandwidth is –85 dBm, when the source has a noise temperature of 290 K.
a) Calculate the noise figure of this spectrum analyzer.
b) A pre-amplifier with 2 dB noise figure is used. How large should the gain
of this pre-amplifier be to give a noise level reduced to the preamplifier
input of –100 dBm?
4. A Satellite in geosynchronous orbit is used as a regerative repeater in a digital
communication system. Let us consider the staellite to earth link in which the
satellite antenna has a gain of 6 dB and the earth station antenna has again of
50 dB. The downlink is operated at 4 GHz, and the signal BW is 1 MHz. If the
required Eb/No for reliable communication is 15 dB, determine the transmitted
power for the satellite downlink. It is asummed that No=4.1 x 10 -23 W/Hz.
5. Fixed radio links are more and more using mm-waves.
a) What kind of propagation losses must be taken into account in the
planning of a mm-wave radio link hop above 30 GHz in addition to rain
attenuation?
b) Give an outline to the estimation of outage caused by rain e.g. as a flow
diagram of the procedure. Only the principles are required not the exact
algorithms