Considerations in Klystron Design for Microwave Relay Systems

When a new relay system is being considered, there are many decisions to be made about the type of system and the tube to generate the power. A system which employs a klystron power mixer has many advantages. One of them being that all video amplifiers are eliminated except one at each of the terminals. Furthermore there are no modulation processes that cause amplitude non-linearity in any of the repeaters. Also, experience has demonstrated that klystrons for this service can be very long lived giving tens of thousands of hours life.