GVF Launches Auto-Deploy Initiative

Dear Industry Colleague,

I am pleased to invite your organisation's participation in an Auto-Deploy Initiative being launched by GVF. The initiative's objective is to facilitate improved performance of -- and reduced interference associated with -- auto-deploy satellite communications terminals.

Recently, the use of auto-deploy systems has been increasing worldwide. These new classes of Earth stations are supposed to require little or no operator training, so the systems either have to function flawlessly or interference to other satellite communications users and networks is likely to occur. Indeed, incidents have been reported where terminals acquired satellites several degrees away from the intended orbital location and transmitted for hours or days before being corrected. 

In some cases, users on the “distant end” of these links were unable to see the downlink so the transmitter power was simply increased to the maximum possible output level, causing extensive interference to unintended victims on completely different satellites. Other reported incidents relate to interference to services carried on orthogonal polarized transponders, due to poor polarization alignment algorithms and/or antenna performance. This severely reduces the performance and value of the communications link and, potentially, other networks on the same and adjacent satellites.

GVF has been asked by industry to help solve the problem. Accordingly, the attached document has been drafted by a new Task Force of the GVF Mutual Recognition Arrangement Working Group (MRA-WG). I am serving as Chairman of the GVF Auto-Deploy Task Force, and Colin Robinson, Sr. Dir. Program Management of GD Satcom, is Chairman of the GVF MRA-WG. The attached draft document seeks to characterise the challenge and to describe a potential solution. We invite your organisation to review the draft and, if appropriate, nominate a point of contact who can work with us to finalise an effective solution. To nominate your company's representative, please advise the GVF Secretariat at David.Hartshorn@gvf.org. We look forward to including your company in this important endeavour.  

Sincerely,

Simon Atkinson

Resource Manager, Newsgathering