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At least 1,225 records · Page 68

The small-scale, quasi-periodic, disk component of solar radio radiation

Interferometric observations of the sun at wavelengths of 3.7 and 11 cm show that small-scale, quasi-periodic radio emission is coming from the sun. The periods occur in a band of periods with a midband frequency of 3.75 mHz and a bandwidth of 2.5 mHz. The peak-to-peak fluctuations in brightness temperature, lie between 4,000 and 500,000 K. The radio emission is less than about 10% linearly or circularly polarized; the angular size of the emitting regions is of the order of 10 seconds. The radio emission originates at the base of the chromosphere-corona transition region at approximately 2200 km above the level at which the optical depth at 5000 A is unity.

Lang, K. R.↗

Anisotropic proton instability magnetospheric /APIM/ hiss - An introduction

Plasmaspheric hiss is broadband ELF noise between 100 and 2000 Hz generally occurring inside the plasmasphere. It is proposed that some plasmaspheric ELF hiss is generated by ring current protons. The mechanism by which waves are generated is the anisotropic proton instability magnetospheric (APIM) hiss mechanism. APIM hiss (with a frequency close to the lower hybrid resonance frequency) is a loss-cone, flute instability arising from proton velocity space anisotropies. The energy driving the waves comes from the free energy of the 'inverted population' of the proton loss-cone distribution. The APIM hiss mechanism predicts the bandwidth, center frequency, source location, and wave normal angle of some types of plasmaspheric hiss. APIM hiss is suggested as a possible additional loss mechanism for ring current protons.

Parady, B. K.↗

Communication system for the Viking mission to Mars

The Viking communications system discussed comprises a UHF relay link and an S-band communication link. The design of both links was guided by the design of the mission itself and its constraints. The most important of these are: the available launch opportunities; the effect of interplanetary distances on the power and bandwidth of the S-band link; weight; reliability and survival in the Martian environment; the up-link command philosophy; the landing problem; and the requirements for planetary quarantine and cleanliness. The Viking mission, with its orbits and trajectories, launch and landing sequences is described and illustrated.

Brown, I.↗

Amplification of microwaves by superconducting microbridges in a four-wave parametric mode

Parametric amplification of microwaves was observed using thin-film junctions of the Anderson-Dayem type. A series of 80 such junctions were incorporated into the upper conductor of a broadband 50-ohm microstrip transmission line with no DC bias. The amplifier was operated in the 'doubly degenerate' mode with signal, pump, and idler frequencies closely and equally spaced. An electronic gain of 12 dB at 10 GHz was observed. The bandwidth was measured to be 1 GHz and the noise temperature to be less than 20 K.

Parrish, P. T.↗

Minimization of the prime power consumption of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter

The present article addresses itself to the prime power requirements of a coupling-modulated gas laser transmitter. The latter consists of a gas discharge tube and electrooptic modulator inside a laser resonator. In performing the calculations, the laser discharge length and the modulator voltage are simultaneously varied so that the transmitted power remains constant. In this way, tradeoffs can be made between the prime power supplied individually to the discharge tube and to the modulator driver to obtain a transmitter configuration that minimizes the total prime power consumption. An analytical expression is derived that describes the effects of information bandwidth and transmitter output power on the prime power requirements. Specific numerical results are obtained for a CO2 laser transmitter based on presently available experimental data.

Degnan, J. J.↗

An upper limit to an X-ray point source at the center of the Cygnus Loop

The Cygnus Loop was observed with a one-dimensional X-ray telescope. Data from two orthogonal scans showed no evidence for a pointlike remnant of the supernova at the center of the Loop. We set an upper limit to the presence of such a source of 2.9% (at 99.9% confidence) of the total emission in the bandwidth from 400 eV to 850 eV. The pulsed component at 62.31 msec suggested by Rappaport et al. (1973) was not observed.

Weisskopf, M. C.↗

Remote detection of soil surface moisture

Polarimetric data concerning soil surface moisture were obtained during a series of flights over the Imperial Valley, California, and Phoenix, Arizona, during March 1972. A polarimeter was installed in NASA's Convair-990 aircraft, Galileo, above a window in the floor of the aft cargo compartment in such a manner that it could view from 42 deg ahead of, to 42 deg to the rear of the nadir. It had a 3 deg field of view and a 10 nm bandwidth centered at 641 nm. The moisture content of the solid surface for fields viewed by the polarimeter was measured by determining the angle through which the light had been scattered by the soil and by observing the degree of polarization of this light produced during its interaction with the soil. The polarimeter measures this degree of polarization in terms of Stokes parameters. Ground-truth samples of soil were obtained at several depths along the flight path.

Stockhoff, E. H.↗

Spectral behavior of Jupiter near 1 MHz

Emission from Jupiter has been observed by the IMP-6 spacecraft at 25 frequencies between 425 and 9900 kHz covering the period April 1971 to October 1972. The Jovian bursts were identified through the phase of the observed modulated signal detected from the spinning dipole antenna. Approximately 500 days of data have been scanned for Jupiter emissions with a positive detection of at least 382 events. The static spectral behavior of the emission has been investigated and can be divided naturally into three types. Type one (normal) shows a high correlation with earth-based observations and follows the same spectral behavior. These bursts are seldom detected much below 1 MHz. The second type (md-frequency) occurs near or below 1 MHz and shows low and high-frequency cutoffs. The emission peak is near 900 kHz with a 3 db bandwidth of approximately 450 kHz. A third type consists of a complex combination of the previous types.

Brown, L. W.↗

O/1 D/ production in ozone photolysis near 3100 A

Relative quantum yields of O(1 D) production in ozone photolysis from 2750 to 3340 A have been determined in the gas phase at -40 C. The O(1 D) was monitored by means of its reaction with isobutane to form isobutyl alcohol. The light source was a high pressure mercury lamp combined with a monochromator, with a bandwidth of 16 A. The results show a constant O(1 D) production below 3000 A, which is taken as unity on the basis of previous work. There is a very sharp fall-off in O(1 D) production which is centered at 3080 A. At 3130 A, O(1 D) production is not greater than 0.1.

Lin, C.-L.↗

A baseline maritime satellite communication system

This paper describes a baseline system for maritime communications via satellite during the 1980s. The system model employs three geostationary satellites with global coverage antennas. Access to the system is controlled by a master station; user access is based on time-ordered polling or random access. Each Thor-Delta launched satellite has an RF power of 100 W (spinner) or 250 W (three-axis stabilized), and provides 10 equivalent duplex voice channels for up to 1500 ships with average waiting times of approximately 2.5 minutes. The satellite capacity is bounded by the available bandwidth to 50 such channels, which can serve up to 10,000 ships with an average waiting time of 5 minutes. The ships must have peak antenna gains of approximately 15.5 dB or 22.5 dB for the two cases (10 or 50 voice channels) when a spinner satellite is used; the required gains are 4 dB lower if a three-axis stabilized satellite is used. The ship antenna requirements can be reduced by 8 to 10 dB by employing a high-gain multi-beam phased array antenna on the satellite.

Durrani, S. H.↗

Graphical derivations of radar, sonar, and communication signals

The designer of a communication system often has knowledge concerning the changes in distance between transmitter and receiver as a function of time. This information can be exploited to reduce multipath interference via proper signal design. A radar or sonar may also have good a priori information about possible target trajectories. Such knowledge can again be used to reduce the receiver's response to clutter (MTI), to enhance signal-to-noise ratio, or to simplify receiver design. There are also situations in which prior knowledge about trajectories is lacking. The system should then utilize a single-filter pair which is insensitive to the effects induced by relative motion between transmitter, receiver, and reflectors. For waveforms with large time-bandwidth products, such as long pulse trains, it is possible to graphically derive signal formats for both situations (trajectory known and unknown). Although the exact form of the signal is sometimes not specified by the graphical procedure, the problem in such cases is reduced to one which has already been solved, i.e., the generation of an impulse equivalent code.

Altes, R. A.↗

The Ellicott meteorite

Two medium octahedrite iron meteorites recently found near Ellicott, Colorado, are described and compared to a medium octahedrite iron meteorite discovered in 1902 at nearby Franceville, Colo. Based on the Ni, Ga, Ge, and Ir contents, the pronounced differences in shock history, and the differences in average kamacite bandwidth, it is clear that Ellicott is a new meteorite, distinct from the Franceville find.

Olsen, E. J.↗

A multichannel biotelemetry transmitter utilizing a PCM subcarrier

Making use of the currently available integrated circuits, a miniature PCM telemetry system operating from one miniature 9-volt battery and drawing less than 5 milliamps has been constructed. The use of this PCM telemetry signal not only provides accurate data transmission, but requires a minimum of RF bandwidth. The serial format that results from multiplexing the input data allows the use of a single channel recorder with its cost savings over a multichannel tape recorder. An additional benefit of the PCM encoding is that the data is in digital format and is directly suitable for computer use.

Fryer, T. B.↗

Capacity of noncoherent MFSK channels

Performance limits theoretically achievable over noncoherent channels perturbed by additive Gaussian noise in hard decision, optimal, and soft decision receivers are computed as functions of the number of orthogonal signals and the predetection signal-to-noise ratio. Equations are derived for orthogonal signal capacity, the ultimate MFSK capacity, and the convolutional coding and decoding limit. It is shown that performance improves as the signal-to-noise ratio increases, provided the bandwidth can be increased, that the optimum number of signals is not infinite (except for the optimal receiver), and that the optimum number decreases as the signal-to-noise ratio decreases, but is never less than 7 for even the hard decision receiver.

Bar-David, I.↗

Space Shuttle communications - Wideband direct link signal and system design

This paper describes the design of a wideband S-band communications link from the Space Shuttle Orbiter to a ground-based terminal. This link will be used for transmission of television, digital data (various rates), or analog data, and is of interest because of the presence of bandwidth, power, and hardware constraints. The procedure followed to arrive at an overall signal and system design is outlined, and system performance margins are presented for various operational configurations. Finally, the growth potential of this link for digital data transmission is discussed.

Batson, B. H.↗

Optimum testing of multiple hypotheses in quantum detection theory

The problem of specifying the optimum quantum detector in multiple hypotheses testing is considered for application to optical communications. The quantum digital detection problem is formulated as a linear programming problem on an infinite-dimensional space. A necessary and sufficient condition is derived by the application of a general duality theorem specifying the optimum detector in terms of a set of linear operator equations and inequalities. Existence of the optimum quantum detector is also established. The optimality of commuting detection operators is discussed in some examples. The structure and performance of the optimal receiver are derived for the quantum detection of narrow-band coherent orthogonal and simplex signals. It is shown that modal photon counting is asymptotically optimum in the limit of a large signaling alphabet and that the capacity goes to infinity in the absence of a bandwidth limitation.

Yuen, H. P.↗

Carrier synchronization and detection of QASK signal sets

A carrier regeneration loop which generates highly coherent quadrature reference signals for quadrature amplitude-shift keying (QASK) demodulation is presented. The loop employs the principle of decision feedback and has a structure analogous to a decision feedback loop for quadriphase signals suggested earlier in the literature. The error probability performance of QASK is computed in the presence of the noisy carrier reference signals provided by the above loop. It is demonstrated that when the ratio of data rate to loop bandwidth is 50 or greater, then for all practical purposes, ideal QASK error probability performance is achieved.

Simon, M. K.↗

Design considerations in the creation and maintenance of electrostatic cleanliness for solar electrically propelled spacecraft

Charge build-up on spacecraft surfaces and resulting zones of electrostatic contamination have been examined for electrically active and electrically passive spacecraft with both conducting and dielectric surface materials, illuminated and nonilluminated surface conditions, and for both inclusion and neglect of free charge effects from photocurrents and ambient space plasma particles. Techniques for measurement and reduction of electrostatic contamination zone extent have been developed for spacecraft with charge release capability. Indicated limitations for contamination cleanup are about 1 volt potential variation from spacecraft to ambient plasma. Bandwidths of electrostatic monitoring and clamping devices extend to several hundred kilohertz for both DC and 'broadband' AC electrostatic cleanliness.

Sellen, J. M., Jr.↗