Satellite Communications

by Timothy Pratt, Jeremy E Allnutt, CHARLES BOSTIAN TIMOTHY PRATT

Book Overview

The only work to present a unified treatment of all the basic aspects of satellite communications and to give practical examples from real systems. Whereas most texts in the field concentrate on a mathematical description of the communications link, Satellite Communications gives the reader a thorough knowledge of the subject by going on to cover orbits, propagation, and the equipment that comprises a working system. Pratt and Bostian go beyond the...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471878375
• ISBN13: 9780471878377
• Release Date: March 1986
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

fine

the only thing I will mention is the packing can be improved. the book hard cover was damaged due to the poor packing. there should be some protection for the book, book was in the regular envelope without any protection.

In Reality, the Simplified, Friendly, and Useful Results of Vector Calculus and Hardcore Newtonian-M

The first edition of this book was assigned to me as part of a satellite communication's course. Given that the book's focus is on various aspects of an end-to-end satellite communication's link, I must admit that the inclusion of some of the material can seem rather mysterious. In particular, the Orbital Mechanics in chapter 2 (of 1st edition) doesn't at first appear to fit with the rest of the text. My reading of the book in school and at Hughes/Boeing Satellite Systems revealed that this was a great book. Somehow, mysteriously, always containing passages that were brief and accurate, but also extremely useful and easy-to-understand. With hindsight, even the chapter on Orbital Mechanics with its bit of vector calculus now seems a very clever way of stating the obvious. Mathematical physics not only remains extremely important and necessary but also provides the means, or in other words methods, by which the results of this text were developed. It's only in the name of efficiency that most of the text states its results without the heavy-duty machinary of mathematical physics showing. I can now easily see and easily state that, in reality, the rest of the book contains the DIRECT RESULTS of vector calculus and Hardcore Newtonian-Maxwellian Intuition. It is a tribute to the politeness and virtue of Pratt and Bostian that despite their understanding of vector calculus in orbital mechanics and electromagnetics, their text has only the barest traces of such advanced and extremely demanding techniques. Superficially, the text appears simple. In fact, it looks almost vocational until one ponders upon the engineering and physical situations involved, seeing them with the eyes of historical perspective.

Great for a beginner

I read this book as a reference rather than a formal class textbook. As a self-studying student, the first book I bought to study satellite communications was the famouns 'Digital Satellite Communications' ritten by Dr. Tri t. Ha. It is actually a quite good book. However it was just too much for a eginner. Too much mathmatical fomulars and too less literatual explanation for a new concept. It took 8 months to read just one third of the book during my militarry service. Since I have been assigned to a digital satellite earthstation construction project recently, I needed a new book that explains more practically and easilly. This 'Satellite Communications' by Dr. Timothy Pratt and Dr. Charles W. Bostian.To cover allmost all area of the satellite communications, the overall composition is simillar to other books. At charper 3, 'SPACECRAFT', I could find fine explanation on the satellite beam and coverage. Especially, this helps me with understanding and analyzing the SRS-CDROM data. This is really great for me. Some basic and important concepts like Noise, C/N and G/T are very well descibed in chapter 4, 'SATELLITE LINK DESIGN'. Freankly, most books tend to jump to mathmatical method to explain concepts. The author spared more pages to explain the concept and the physical meaning of the terminology. I know this is a very eficient and simple way to show the existing and potential meaning of terminology. But there are hundreds of good reasons to have this kind of kind book for a slowly understanding engineer like me. :-) At chapter 5 and 6 to explain the modulation, multiplexing and multiple access, there are less fomulas and more tables and graphs. First, I read over those two chapters and went back to Dr. Ha's book above to learn the mathmatical expression. That's how you can expand the concept to individual field applications. The 'Design of Large Antennas' in chapter 9, 'EARTH STATION TECHNOLOGY' was helpful for me, too. It is pretty hard to find propper information about large antennas ahtough you have to face a bunch of confusing terminologies when you visit antenna company web sites like Vertex, RSI (recently merged to Vertex to make VertexRSI), or Datron.I believe the combination of this ook, 'Satellite Communications' and 'Digital Satellite Communications' will give you almost all knowledge you need from fundamental to practical level in satellite communications engineering field.