Design and characterization of the Q-band AlphaSat receiving station in Rome

A Q-band (40 GHz) receiving station, located in Rome (Italy), is in development for AlphaSat satellite Technology Demonstrator Payload 5 “Aldo”. Components of an unused receiving station, dedicated to previous propagation experiments, have been used with a great economic advantage. Mechanical tracking has been avoided because used antenna reduces received power level variations for satellite apparent movement. Numerical analysis has been compared with test bench results.