Talk:Syncom

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[edit] Capabilites of Syncom 1-3?

There's a bit of disagreement between these two sources:

http://roland.lerc.nasa.gov/~dglover/sat/syncom.html states that several concurrent two-way phone conversations were possible on the Syncom satellites, whilst their NSSDC (1 2 3) entries suggest just one full duplex telephone channel. Any ideas what's right? - Drw25 21:15, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I believe the NSSDC references are correct but flawed. The "Mission" data is unique for each variant but the "Spacecraft and Subsystems" are exactly the same for Syncom 1, 2 and 3 (when in fact the data is specific to Syncom 3). Using Boeing as a source I think the following specifications are correct. In any case I think they are saying though the specs were different both 2 and 3 were only capable of a single two-way conversation.

Syncom 2 had "Two 500-kHz channel, double-conversion repeaters [for] narrowband two-way communication, and a single 5-MHz channel, double-conversion repeater performed one-way wideband communication." i.e. one two-way telephone channel or 16 "teletype" channels.

Syncom 3 had "one 5-MHz [double-conversion repeater] and one switchable (50 kHz or 13 MHz) double-conversion repeater. The increased bandwidth improved television transmissions."Mark83 19:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)