The beacon RX receives a satellite beacon signal which is down-converted to L-Band by a PLL stabilised Low Noise Converter (LNC) at its L-band interface input. The beacon RX does not demodulate any satellite because the satellite signals are sometimes CW signals but also very often modulated in FM or BPSK form. Due to this fact the best implementation is a non-coherent receiver which measures the input level in a user selectable defined bandwidth and provides this as a dB-linear and calibrated analogue output voltage and digital information.
The level output is provided by three different and parallel available interface types: The RS232 interface providing a bi-directional monitor and control protocol, the measurement data streaming output (RS422) or the analog voltage output. The sat-nms beacon receiver is controlled remotely by a monitoring and control application through the RS232 port. The RS422 streaming output sends the measured level at the full measurement rate of the receiver with a minimal protocol overhead.