A Novel Distributed Translator for an ATSC Terrestrial DTV System

This paper presents a new design and implementation method of distributed translator (DTxR), termed the equalization DTxR (EDTxR), for distributed translator network in ATSC systems. EDTxR has a simple structure and does not require any devices to be added to studio or transmitter facilities already deployed. EDTxRs which retransmit the same transmitter signal can have identical output symbol streams among them without additional synchronization information by utilizing the structure of the equalization digital on-channel repeater (EDOCR). Moreover, they can synchronize output frequency among them without global positioning system (GPS) clock receivers by adopting a crystal oscillator for each translator and compensating the frequency offset of the each crystal oscillator through the carrier and timing recovery. To verify the proposed method, multiple EDTxRs are implemented and tested in the laboratory and in the field. Through the tests, it is confirmed that EDTxR is a simple and economic distributed translator for distributed transmission system which does not need additional synchronization devices. Therefore, EDTxR can be a promising translator for coverage extension of digital terrestrial television broadcasting under spectrum deficient situations.