Over the past several days, Walton De-Ice has conducted a series on .98m Ku- and Ka-band r/t antennas with Snow Shields and the Company's just introduced Ice Quake.

With the assistance of HNS engineers who monitored both the RX and TX signals before, during, and after the installation of the new Ice Quake product, Walton De-Ice is delighted to report there were no differences to the received or transmitted signal when Ice Quake was activated. Over the next several weeks, the new Ice Quake product will be monitored for possible signal degradation during rain situations. The Company is confident the test results will prove that, during any rain events, the rain droplets will be shed faster using Ice Quake than antennas without the new product, especially Ka-band use.

The Snow Shield was recently introduced by Walton De-Ice and is being used on antennas from 0.6-meters to 5.0-meters in diameter. The Snow Shield consists of PTFE coated Gore-Tex® material, which has a very low coefficient of friction, stretched over the satellite antenna. The Snow Shield can be used as a passive system, as most snow and ice will slide off due to the PTFE coating, or heat can be added for a higher level of protection.

Ice Quake is an electric vibrator housed in a small aluminum enclosure installed on the edge of the antenna reflector using cylindrical vibration isolators to prevent damage to the antenna reflective surface. A piece of PTFE acts as the actuator arm, which is the same material the Gore-Tex Snow Shield Cover is constructed of — Ice Quake is riveted to the housing and then slipped into a pocket sewn into the Snow Shield Cover. The PTFE actuator arm transfers the vibration from the electric motor into the Snow Shield cover. Because of the vibration isolators, the vibration is not transferred to the antenna by the vibrator assembly or transferred to the feed horn assembly. Ice Quake is ideal for military or remote applications where a generator is required to power the portable site. In the past, as much as 4,500 watts of power would be required to power the de-icing system on a 2.4m antenna. With this new vibration system, less than 200 watts is required to remove snow or ice from the Gore-Tex Cover. The spares that would be normally be required to support the vibration system would also be a cost savings factor. The only components are the vibrator assembly and the DS-2 assembly.