Rack-Mounted Block Down Converter Chassis

Orbital Flexibility

Engineered using the highest quality components insures you from failure due to environmental extremes such as arctic cold, Saharan heat, and rain-forest humidity.  Our LNB is protected from man-made conditions such as chock, vibration, low power, over-voltage, surges, transients, and static discharge.  Performance is consistent and replacements will match or exceed your original device.

"Mass-Custom" Solution

Orbital starts with the proven performance product that is extremely well engineered with the development costs amortized over thousands of units and the parts costs reduced by volume discounts.  We then customize the mass produced DRO LNB into an external reference version at 1/100 the cost of designing and building from scratch.

General Description

The 1RU, 19 inch rack-mount block downconverter assembly translates RF inputs into IF outputs. 

The converters contain internal crystal controlled, high stability frequency references. All crystal oscillators are constantly powered up so there is no warm up time when switching to the BDC module.  A splitter provides signal to all BDC modules (up to four in a single rack), at once. Non-selected units will have their local VCO oscillators powered down to minimize spurious and in-band interference.

For a description of our BDC modules, see Block Downconverters.

Orbital Design

Up to four BDC modules may be integrated into a single rack-mount chassis.  There are a variety of choices for the BDC frequency range within each band: S, C, X, Ku, & Ka. 

External Reference versions are available for C, Ku and Ka bands only at this time.  Enquiries for X and S band are welcomed.

Features

• Up to four BDC modules in a single chassis
• PLL and external reference BDC modules
• Standard or precision oscillator inside the chassis
• Redundant BDCs in the same chassis in one for one or one for two configurations
• Redundant and switchable racks in one for one or one for two configurations
• Horizontal and vertical polarities in the same chassis
• Automatically switching redundant power supplies included
• Always on crystals for PLLs for instant lock

Internal/External Power Supplies (Optional)

Power supplies, historically, have the lowest MTBF of the components in a system. The Orbital Internal / External power supply configuration was designed to provide inexpensive and rapid power supply replacement. A secondary benefit is the lower operating temperature of the external power supply thus extending its life.

The external power supply needs to be 24VDC, with a minimum current rating of 1.2 Amps. It is the main power supply. If it fails, the system switches to the internal power supply. This gives the customer time to replace the external power supply without any down time or without having to take the entire rackmounted chassis in for repair.

BDC Configurations

• Single BDC - One input, one output.
• Dual Wideband BDCs - Come in two main flavors, either switch between the modules as in high or low band or with two outputs (one per BDC), with both BDCs always on.
• Dual Polarity BDCs - One for each of horizontal and vertical polarity - both BDCs are always on.
• Dual Polarity, Dual Wideband - High and Low wideband BDCs that cover the whole band, and a second pair to cover both polarities.  Two inputs, four outputs.
• Tri Band - Three BDCs cover the entire band.  Available in switchable single output and always on (three output) versions.

The above offerings are available in PLL or external reference versions, and are also available in redundant configurations, either as one for one or one for two systems.

C-Band BDCs	# of BDC Modules	PLL/Ext Ref	BDC Status	Every Orbital Rack
C-Band Block-downconverter Rack Systems
RMB1-CPSS	1	PLL	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output	Contains Orbital BDC Modules C band BDC Module In 1 RU Rack Mount chassis
RMB2-CP22	2	PLL	BDCs Always on 2 RF Inputs 2 L Band Outputs
RMB1-CXISS	1	Internal / External 10 MHz Source	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output
RMB2-CXIS2	2	Internal / External 10 MHz Source	BDCs Always on 2 RF Inputs 2 L Band Outputs
RMB1-CXESS	1	External 10 Mhz Only	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output
RMB2-CXES2	2	External 10 Mhz Only	BDCs Always on 2 RF Inputs 2 L Band Outputs

Orbital Design

The single unit integrates one Block Down-Converter (BDC), into a single rack-mount chassis.  There are a variety of choices for the BDC frequency range from 3.40~4.20, as well as the India band of 0~4.80 GHz. 

Ku-Band BDCs	# of BDC Modules	PLL/Ext Ref	BDC Status	Every Orbital Rack
Ku Band - Single BDC
RMB1-KuPSS	1	PLL	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output	Contains Orbital BDC Modules Ku band BDC Module In 1 RU Rack Mount chassis
RMB1-KuXISS	1	Internal / External 10 MHz Source	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output
RMB1-KuXESS	1	External 10 Mhz Only	BDC Always on 1 RF Input 1 L Band Output

Orbital Design

Orbital produces a variety of input and output ranges, bandwidths, and LOs. Remember that input and output bandwidth must always be equal.