IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting

The Japanese Medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purpose (BSE) was launched in April 1978 and ended all experiments in January 1982. Valuable technical data related to satellite broadcasting systems and satellite technology were obtained during the mission period through the experiments and operations of the BSE. This paper describes the outline of the satellite broadcasting exper... View full abstract»

Propagation measurements were carried out at 12 GHz on the down-link of the Japan's Medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purpose (BSE), launched in 1978. Analyses of the measurements have revealed the statistics of rain attenuation and duration of fade at 12 GHz in various parts and climates of Japan, as well as other environmental effects such as degradation of reception quality d... View full abstract»

The Japanese Medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purpose(BSE) was successfully positioned in a geostationary orbit on 26 April 1978. Various kinds of transmission characteristics were periodically measured every half year. Those were frequency responses and input-output characteristics of each electronics unit which made up a high power, 100W, transponder. No significant degradati... View full abstract»

Methods and results of on-board antenna pattern measurements of Medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purpose (BSE) are described in this paper. The measurements were carried out by means of satellite attitude offsets about the pitch and roll axes. Measured antenna patterns at both up-and down-link frequencies (14 and 12GHz) agree with the pre-launch data in the eastwards of the pat... View full abstract»

The Japanese Medium-scale Broadcasting Satellite for Experimental Purpose (BSE) is a zero-momentum three-axis stabilized spacecraft and has the ability to broadcast simultaneously two channels of color television in the frequency band of 12 GHz. View full abstract»

This paper presents the result of an up-link power control experiment conducted by using BSE. The result shows that the variation of up-link receiving power due to rain attenuation was kept within 0.5 dB in rms and 1.5 dB in peak in most of time by a simple method, where the attenuation of the up-link receiving power was estimated from receiving power of a down-link signal. Effect of up-link power... View full abstract»

This paper describes the technique of television program switching in direct broadcasting system. Television program switching between transmitting earth stations is performed via satellite applying the uplink transmitter control technique. In order to achieve program switching without signal overlap or break during the switchover, the propagation time from the earth station to the satellite and t... View full abstract»

Standardization of transmission system for television satellite broadcasting with multiple sound and/or data signals for an operational broadcasting satellite system is under study in Japan. Based upon result obtained from the BSE experiment, several transmission systems have been developed at the NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). View full abstract»

The Broadcasting Satellite-2 (BS-2) Program is intended to establish the first Japanese operational domestic satellite broadcasting system using K-band frequencies allocated to Japanese domestic satellite broadcasting service by 1977-WARC-BS. This paper presents the outline of the BS-2 program, including mission objectives, spacecraft, ground system and home receiver. View full abstract»