FREQUENCY TRANSLATION ROUTING COMMUNICATIONS TRANSPONDER

摘要

Frequency bands in spot beams received by a satellite transponder are routed to transmitted spot beams. Every band in all received beams are frequency translated into separate bands within the transponder. The separate bands result in a total bandwidth within the transponder equal to the number of received spot beams times the bandwidth of each spot beam. The total bandwidth is then divided among the transmitters - each divided portion being reconverted into the transmitter bandwidth. Routing of a single receive band is accomplished by mixing the band with a local oscillator signal having a frequency whose value causes the mixer output to assume a particular band within the total bandwidth - the particular band being diverted to the transmitted spot beam of interest.