Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT


Low earth orbit antennas

13 April 2011 Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT

Webb Industries, which has had considerable success with its range of Iridium low earth orbit (LEO) antennas abroad, has announced that it will now be increasing its local marketing effort with these products.

Terry Reuss, Webb Industries’ engineering manager, says that with the recent ICASA approval of Iridium satellite phone systems and its awarding of the first licence to sell them in South Africa, the local Iridium market is set to fly. He says that from its range of Iridium antennas, Webb will initially focus on the ALPHA and CliiP variants.

The Alpha antenna is a roof-mount Iridium/GSM/GPS combination antenna based on a dual ceramic patch design with PCB GSM radiator. For the GPS, using a 24 dB patch and amplifier, this antenna has a time-to-first-fix (TTFF) of <45 seconds and, for the GSM, an upright PCB radiator gives an omnidirectional signal with a maximum gain of 2 dBi. The Alpha works for both data and voice.

The CLiiP is an Iridium/GSM/GPS antenna based on the highly successful OEM IR 3 design. Its tough casing is specially designed for external use where a hard-wearing rugged antenna is required. Operating temperature range is -30°C to +80°C.

These antennas have a wide range of applications in line with the Iridium offering and include: maritime, aviation, government/military, emergency/humanitarian services, mining, forestry, oil and gas, heavy equipment, transportation and utilities.

Iridium’s constellation – the world’s largest commercial satellite constellation – consists of 66 low earth orbiting, cross-linked satellites operating as a fully meshed network and supported by multiple in-orbit spares. The Iridium constellation architecture ensures high reliability and low latency.





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