Propagation characteristics of non-snow-attached LuneQ antenna for satellite re-transmission of terrestrial digital broadcasting signal

This paper deals with an approach to realize a satellite retransmission system for terrestrial digital broadcasting CTV signals by using the 14/12 GHz band transponder for remote island or sparsely populated areas in Japan. To accomplish the satellite retransmission system, (1) snow attenuation due to snow attachment on the antenna dish in snow climate areas in northern parts of Japan should be clarified, and (2) the high quality retransmitted digital TV signals must be verified. To address these issues, experiments to investigate the snow attenuation characteristics of the negative-gradient slanted polymer-shielded Lune-Q antenna and the 8phi-PSK terrestrial digital CTV transmission by using the JSAT satellite transponder were carried out. High quality of digital TV satellite retransmission could be confirmed by using the H.264 decoder/decoder system via the JSAT 14/12 GHz transponder. Though those experiments, it was concluded that high quality digital CTV satellite retransmission in snow-climate areas can be successfully achieved and detail propagation characteristics can be obtained.