[Las Vegas Dave]

HDTV pings!

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LasVegasDave.

[eyedigress]

It means my Radar Detector will be going nuts all over the place.

[InterceptPoint]

Ka band frequencies are higher than than Ku band. That makes it easier to get higher bandwidth in the key rf components of the system: antenna, amplifiers, converters and filters. Ground antennas can be smaller and that is also a plus. The penalty: probable higher atmospheric attenuation. And getting transmit power on the satellite will be harder but apparently DirecTV thinks they can handle that problem.

[Gaffer]

But what makes Ka-band superior to Ku-band

These antennas are mostly parabolic sections with offset feeds (the focal point is not directly in front of the antenna so aperture blockage is nil - good thing). Typical circular reflectors and feed designs are nominally 10% bandwidth (10% of the nominal design frequency).

Hence, roughly, if you double the frequency, the operating bandwidth doubles. Additionally, if the aperture size stays the same, the gain increases when the frequency is increased...so - more bandwidth, more gain (there are other losses that counteract some of the gain increase). There will also be a narrower beamwidth which means more difficult to align. I find it curious that businessmen in charge of billion dollar plus enterprises don't even understand what makes them tick...if I owned the company, their buts would be in a class somewhere.

[jokar]

BUMP