NORTHEAST ELECTRONICS RESEARCH AND ENGINEERING MEETING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-02820A001400010017-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 30, 2005
• Sequence Number: 17
• Publication Date: January 1, 1968
• Content Type: MFR

Approved For Releas 05/12/14: CIA-RDP78-02820AO0140,10017-7
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SA 67-018
1 January 1968
SUBJECT: Northeast Electronics Research and,Engineering Meeting
1. I attended. the subject meeting during 1 through 3 November mainly
to sit in on the lectures on satellite communications. The first speaker,
Mr. G. R. Frantz of Sylvania compared. the development of satellite systems
with the comparable development of the TWT and, solid-state technology. It
was first thought that we would. have to stick with low altitude satellites
because the cost of a ground, station for a synchronous satellite would. be
very high,- Syncom proved, the feasibility of synchronous satellites. He
recommended against the use of a rad.ome if possible because of the high loss
due to rain on the radome surface.
COMSAT is the manager of the Interim Communications Satellite Committee
(ICSC) and. they expect to have 200 circuits by 1975. They now have nine
stations in the pacific and. three satellites up with a fourth to go up
shortly. This will give global coverage with some overlap, Multiple access
will require ground stations specifications to have at least 95 dbw ERP and.
a G/T at 50 of 40.7 d.b. Much attention should. be paid. to station siting in
order to stay away from terrestrial microwave possible interference. A ground.
station costs about $5 million with the antenna going for about $1.2 million,
the installation cost about $1 million and. the electronics about $1.5 million,
The site and, preparation take up the rest.
2. Mr. R. A. Latter of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. recommended,
a domestic satellite system be integrated. into the Bell system. He compared,
satellites with present long lines technology where the trend. is to reduce
the costs per circuit mile. Satellites are best for high density circuits
between distant stations. He too talked, about the importance of locating the'
ground. station in a low interference area which in most cases negate putting
the antenna on the roof of the Central Office. Rather it must be located, out
in the country and, a microwave link to relay to the CO. Provision must also
be made for alternate routing in case of base station failure. A typical
ground. station is made to handle 1800 4 kc/s circuits or one TV plus the
audio for the program. Fall professional football games have been the big
factor in sizing the long lines system since the system must meet the cus-
tomers requirements. Because of the number of projected TV circuits required,
he said. we should. go up above 12 Ghz.
3. Mr. Cal Steinberg filling in for Dr. Perry talked about typical mili-
tary ground. stations. Ranging in size from the AN/SSC 2 & 3 which are 6'
dishes up to the FSC-9 a 60 footer with 15'., 30' and. 40' in between sizes.
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SA 67-018
SUBJECT: Northeast Electronics Research and. Engineering Meeting
The FSC-9 was originally built for project ADVENT which never did, fly
but the antenna is now used, with the IDCSP program. Military commu-
nication by satellites started in the 2 GHz range and. has now moved
up to the 7 and. 8 GHz range. The six foot dishes with 5 kW of
power and, paramps in the receiver front end. provid.e 1 voice circuit
through SYNCOM. The AN/MSC Mark I B is a 40' dish with hermetically
sealed, and. cooled paramps for use with IDCSP. Twelve have been
delivered, and. three more are to go. TACSATCOM, called, HS-308 by
Hughes, will be able to work into a 1' man pack dish. He talked. a
bit about the atmosphere absorption problems above 12 GHz. He
recommended, research in better baseband, equipment, random access,
adaptive controls for circuit loading and, better modems for AJ
protection. One of the problems of the military is survivability of
their terminals, particularly the small tactical terminals. He
estimates antenna sizes for large ground, stations would, go up to 2101
for deep space probes,
4. R. D. Briskman of COMSAT said.'that as a result of COMSAT
studies he proposed, a pilot program to give economical multiservice
distribution to interconnect with existing ground facilities It
would, complement not supplement present systems. An example would.
be multipoint TV and radio d.istributiori'to receive only stations..
Four satellites in orbit by 1970 could, provide 6 TV programs, by
1980 we would, have to go above 10 GHz,; He envisioned, a system in
the mid.-1970's which would, provide 16 TV plus 4 Educational TV
programs and. 28,000 message channels. We now have or soon will have
6 large ground stations in the U.S.., and, eventually we could, have
158 ground, stations. Satellites in 1978 could, provide 24 TV or
19,200 message channels. Using pencil beams the system could, provide
50 TV trunks or 75,000 point-to--point message channels. He talked
about a 2,000 pound, space craft with a d.espun platform and, both
North/South and, East/West stabilization with a five-year life and.
estimated. a 60% improvement in cost over 10 years,
5. Mr. 0. C. Foster of AT&T discussed, the problems of siting
a ground station so as to minimize interference from other services
particularly tropo-scatter stations. There would. also be probable
interference from adjacent synchronous satellites which once again
brought up the frequency allocation problem. He mentioned, that even
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UNCLASSIFIED
SA 67-018
SUBJECT: Northeast Electronics Research and Engineering Meeting
after a suitable site is found there are often other problems in
acquiring the land..
6. In the evening session, Gen. McCormick, Chairman of the
Board of COMSAT offered to put $50 million into a multibeam system.
He disagreed with the Ford proposal for an ETV which would. be paid,
for by excess income from the commercial broadcasters. He estimated,
that computer talking to computer in a broadband mode will overrun
the narrow band. systems. He said. 60 nations are already in INTELSAT
and they have money in the bank. The technical problems are rela-
tively easy to solve, it is the political nuts which are hard, to
crack. One of the problems is whether we should diversify and have
both cables and, satellites, this I believe, was in reference to TAT-5.
He brought out that legislation is needed for control of wire and,
satellite systems,
7. James D. O'Connell, Director of Telecommunications Manage-
ment pointed. out that satellite systems hold. great promise for
developing nations which do not now have a large internal terrestrial
system. In the United. States it is just the opposite where satellites
replacing all the long lines would, only save 20% of the yearly costs.
The present U. S. terrestrial systems is an $800 million investment
and. capacity can be doubled. for $50 million which does not make a
satellite system look attractive. We need. an experimental program
to prove the feasibility of domestic satellites systems. We also
need. international agreements for frequency assignment and. space
craft positioning. These agreements should. help the developing
nations. We also should, prepare for the renegotiation of INTELSAT in
1969.
8. Dr. K. G. McKay of AT&T said. that satellites are large cap-
acity switching systems and, their best use is as gateway points to
tie into existing ground. facilities. Satellites are not good. for
short haul circuits. He said. we should. separate our domestic from
international satellite systems. He agreed with the COMBAT proposal
for an experimental domestic system. He touched, on the problems of
needing more bandwidth therefore we must go to higher frequencies.
We must investigate the rain attenuation problem and try to develop
better echo suppression techniques. Two hop voice is not possible
now because of the delay involved..
3
UNCLASSIFIED
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SA 67-018
SUBJECT: Northeast Electronics Research and Engineering Meeting
9. Dr. Whelon, filling in for Dr. Puckett of Hughes, gave
essentially the same talk that Dr. Puckett gave at the ETA. meeting
previously reported. in my MFR on that meeting so I will not repeat
it here.
Distribution:
t-R&D Subject File
SA chrono
OC-E
OC-T
EP
OC-ESA:
(2 Jan 68 )
UNCLASSIFIED
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