The first Iridium Earth Terminals are to be equipped with high power uplink amplifiers provided by Varian Microwave Equipment Products. The Palo Alto, California-based company has signed a deal valued at $3.5m to supply Scientific-Atlanta Inc with the kit. Varian Ka-band amplifiers incorporate a split-mount packaging technology in which the RF section is hermetically sealed for antenna mounting, with the power supply located inside the shelter. This prevents large RF signal loss, especially at high frequencies, which is normally encountered when sending the signal from the shelter to the antenna. The Earth Terminals will handle tracking, telemetry and control, and will interface into the public switched telephone network in the Ka 20GHz to 30GHz frequency band.
