Navigation experiment program using ETS-V started to develop satellite communications and ranging techniques for aircrafts and ships in the oceanic area at Electronic Navigation Research Institute in 1983.
This paper describes the constitution and the characteristics of the C-band receiving equipment of the ground earth station which was developed for the navigation experiment program.
The main unit of the C-band receiving equipment contains two C-band low noise amplifiers that are redundant with each other. Two C-band low noise amplifiers and swiches used to sellect one of the amplifiers are set up at the back of C-band antenna to keep off the increase of noise temperature.
The C-band low noise amplifier attains the gain of 55dB and the noise temperature of 65K without cooling devices and satisfies the link budget of the navigation experiment system. To attain the above characteristics, the amplifier is composed of six FETs which are laid on a plane and it is employed HEMT (High Electron Mobility Transistor) as the first FET. The other FETs are GaAs FETs.
