Development of antenna system of a new generation tropospheric communication station

Abstract

Today, means of tropospheric communication play an important role in the organization of communication at distances significantly greater than the distance of direct visibility. The peculiarities of the construction of such lines, in contrast to line-of-sight radio lines, are related to the peculiarities of the propagation of ultrashort waves and their reflection from the inhomogeneities of the troposphere. At the same time, the use of tropospheric stations makes it possible to provide high-quality multi-channel communication at an interval of 150–250 km, while significantly reducing the time for deploying long-distance lines. Along with the advantages, tropospheric means of communication have rather bulky antenna devices and require a significant energy resource. In connection with this, the task of increasing energy efficiency due to the development of antenna systems of tropospheric communication stations that will meet the set requirements arises. In order to solve the problem, a parabolic antenna (a mirror with a diameter of 1.5 m) and two types of irradiators (a linear polarization irradiator and an array of 8 elementary circular polarization irradiators) were proposed as antenna systems for tropospheric communication stations. Verification of the adequacy of the proposed antennas and the possibility of their use on real means of tropospheric communication was carried out in a collimator chamber. In order to confirm the results of the inspection, field tests of the developed antenna system of the tropospheric station were conducted at an interval of 155 km. At the same time, the combined use of the proposed antenna systems for the 80 W transmitter allows for the necessary energy of the tropospheric communication line in the frequency range of 4.5-4.7 GHz.