Design of novel distributed translator for synchronized multiple transmission networks of ATSC 8-VSB system

This paper proposes a novel digital television translator which can be used for synchronized multiple transmission networks or distributed transmission networks of ATSC system. To be used in a distributed transmission network, translators should synchronize each other in terms of frequency and data. The proposed translator, named as baseband equalization distributed translator (EDTxR), uses only the received signal from the main transmitter for synchronization. EDTxR retrieves frequency and timing information from the received main transmitter signal and use it for frequency synchronization among EDTxRs. Moreover, EDTxR adopts additional frequency synchronization scheme to compensate the frequency offset of reference clock. For data synchronization, EDTxR retrieves the symbol data from the received transmitter signal and re-transmits the same symbol data, which makes all the symbols from all EDTxRs have the same data. To assess the performance of the EDTxR, laboratory test and field test are conducted and the results show EDTxR can be used as a digital television translator with higher spectrum efficiency than legacy translator.