Books For Satellite Professionals
HEAVENS FILL WITH COMMERCE
A Brief History of the Communications Satellite Industry
by Virgil Labrador and Peter Galace
Includes the full text of the landmark article 'Extra Terrestrial Relays' by Arthur C. Clarke
This book published by Satnews Publishers is the first book of its kind to cover the entire history of the commercial satellite communications industry from its visionary beginnings to the challenges that the industry is facing in the present millennium. The book traces the breakthroughs in scientific thought from Galileo to Newton that made possible the conception of the geostationary communication satellite propounded by Arthur C. Clarke in 1945. It covers all the major events that shaped the industry from Sputnik, to the formation of Intelsat and the road to commercialization and privatization of the industry that continues to the present.
The book, co-authored by senior Satnews editors Virgil Labrador and Peter Galace, is written in a non-technical style and heavily illustrated by archival photos, graphs and diagrams. It includes a select bibliography and appendices which includes a handy Historical Timeline reference and the full text of the original article by Arthur C. Clarke that started it all 'Extra Terrestrial Relays' which first appeared in Wireless World in October 1945.
The book is not meant to be an exhaustive and comprehensive history of the commercial communication satellite industry but a brief overview of the significant events and major turning points that made the industry what it is today. The book is an easy read and the reader can not only get a good historical perspective on a vital global industry, but also learn how the industry works.
Chapters include:
- Genesis: In the Beginning was an Idea
- From Vison to Reality
- The Birth of a Global Industry: Comsat, Intelsat and Intersputnik
- From Global to Domestic: Communications Satellites Go Local
- Satellites and Development
- Regulation and Deregulation
- Enter Cable and Broadcasting
- The Commercialization of the Industry
- Competition and Consolidation
216 pages / 5.5" x 8.5" / Over 30 photos, tables and diagrams; with index, bibliography and appendices / ISBN: 0-936361-32-8
SATELLITES AND THE INTERNET
Challenges and Solutions
By DC Palter - 1st Edition
A comprehensive guide to networking for the satellite professional.
This book is written for the satellite professional who wants to learn about the design of the Internet and the TCP/IP protocols. In particular, this book focuses on the background needed understand and overcome the performance limitations of TCP/IP when running over satellite in order to be able to design a satellite-based IP network which can take best advantage of expensive satellite bandwidth.
With the growth of the Internet, computer networking for e-mail and Web communications by consumers, businesses, and governments has quickly become a larger consumer of bandwidth than telephony. Even voice traffic is migrating to run over IP. This has created an important new market for communications satellites especially in providing links to the many locations across the globe where terrestrial options have difficulty reaching.
The growth of the Internet has also made TCP/IP the de facto standard for all computer networking, making it critical for satellite operators and users to understand the fundamentals of TCP/IP. Unfortunately, the TCP protocol is not well designed for long delay, high bit error, and asymmetric bandwidth conditions typical of satellite networks. Consequently, it is necessary for the satellite network architect to understand the cause of these limitations and how to design around them in order to create an efficient, responsive network that does not suffer from the performance constraints and can compete with terrestrial alternatives.
This book is not designed to be a comprehensive text on TCP/IP for protocol experts. It is, however, intended to be a comprehensive guide to networking for the satellite professional, including sufficient detail, written as non-technically as possible, to understand the inner workings of the protocols, and thereby grasp the causes of the performance limitations and how to overcome them.
Consequently, the text is divided into three sections. The book begins with a primer on the fundamentals of computer networking. Next, it discusses the various component protocols of the TCP/IP suite. The text then focuses on the design of TCP, the protocol used for reliable transmission of data, looking at the design of the protocol itself and how that design interacts with satellite link conditions to limit performance over the network.
The text then begins a comprehensive review of the various solutions to overcome these limitations. It starts with modifications to TCP/IP itself to improve its performance, then describes various alternative techniques, including specialized satellite protocols, protocol gateways, spoofing, compression, forward error correction, and multicast that can be employed to overcome TCP limitations and create a high performance satellite network.
Approximately 250 pages / 5.5" x 8.5" / Over 100 tables, charts, index, glossary / ISBN: 0-936361-36-0
DIGITAL SATELLITE TV
(Ku-Band Satellite TV - 5th Edition)
by Dr. Frank Baylin
This comprehensive book is organized into 16 complete chapters
A clear explanation of all aspects of worldwide digital satellite TV. This completely rewritten 5th edition of the classic book Ku-Band Satellite TV is expanded with sections on the Internet and data transmission, digital modulation methods, video and audio compression, MPEG-2 and DVB standards, design of digital satellite receivers, worldwide scrambling methods, digital link analysis, IF distribution systems for the digital broadcasts, mobile applications and much more...
Chapters include among other topics:
- History, background of satellite communications
- Communication fundamentals, analog and digital modulation and frequency allocations.
- Analog television operation, NTSC/PAL/SECAM broadcast standards and mono and stereo audio processing methods
- Digital compression, MPEG-2 systems/transport layers, the DVB standard, modulation, multiplexing and error correction, the future of MPEG-2 DVB
- Program sources and uplink operation
- Satellite design, operation, launching and stationkeeping and future trends
- Operation of dishes, mounts, actuators, feeds and polarity selection, LNBs, downconversion methods, LNB electronic design, coaxial cable, connectors
- Analog and digital satellite receiver design and operation, judging receiver performance, customer interfaces and modulators
- History, structure and operation of the INTERNET,uncorking the bottleneck and the satellite INTERNET providers
- Evaluating receive components and and overview of encryption and scrambling
- Detailed installation methods for fixed and tracking dish systems
- Retrofitting older systems to upgrade from C- to Ku-band and installation methods
- Retrofitting sytems for dual-satellite operation
- Analog and digital link analysis, adjacent satellite interference and dish sizing
- Components of TV distribution systems, the headend, conventional and IF methods
- Marine and terrestrial mobile applications and installation methods
- Satellite reception problems
- Troubleshooting and repair methods
Approximately 250 pages / 5.5" x 8.5" / Over 100 tables, charts, index, glossary / ISBN: 0-936361-36-0
For more information call SatNews Publishers at: Tel: (707) 939-9306 Fax: (707) 939-9235 or you can also reach us by e-mail at orders@satnews.com
