Satellite Link Budget Calculator - Mobile Phone Satellite

This example is for a cell phone satellite - return link path from cell phone to hub only shown here.

The uplink antenna diameter of the cell phone is imaginary.  The number (diameter) is artificial and you need to simply adjust this number to get whatever transmit gain you think is realistic.  I have estimated 0 dBi which means omni-directional.  This is not unreasonable in that the satellite may not be exactly overhead and the cell phone is unlikely to have a sharp null upwards.

Choose a suitable mobile uplink frequency, say 890 - 915 MHz or 1805 - 1880 MHz (or both, if you fancy a multi band system)

I have guessed the cell phone power output to be 200 mW and carrier bandwidth 170000 Hz.  This can easily be adjusted up and down for your refinement.

For the spacecraft uplink antenna I have guessed at 30m diameter.  Think in terms of a deployable mesh dish like INMARSAT 4.   You need to run the uplink G/T calculation for this separately:  e.g. 30m diameter at 1.85 GHz, 65% efficiency and 300K noise temp gives a G/T of about +28.5 dBK    The noise temp is high because it looks down at the warm earth, although it will be cooler if you point the satellite uplink antenna at the sea.

On the downlink I have assumed some suitably unusual frequency (34 GHz) for fun.  Change it to anything you want.

For the satellite downlink eirp you need to adjust the satellite eirp per 200000 Hz bandwidth till you get an acceptable downlink C/N.  In the default example below a downlink satellite eirp of +16 dBW per 200000Hz is just about enough.  If the downlink satellite antenna is 43 dBi (e.g. 0.5m dia at 34 GHz) then you need a spacecraft tx power of -27 dBW per 200000 Hz which should not be too difficult to achieve.

Amend all the white boxes freely as you wish and then click any calculate button to obtain results in the green boxes.

Uplink mobile frequency GHz
Uplink mobile antenna diameter m
Uplink mobile antenna aperture efficiency e.g. 0.65
Uplink mobile antenna transmit gain dBi
Uplink mobile antenna, power at the feed W
Uplink mobile EIRP dBW
Range (35778 - 41679) km
Uplink path loss dB
Uplink pfd at satellite dBW/m^2
Bandwidth Hz
Satellite uplink G/T dB/K
Uplink C/N dB

Downlink frequency GHz
Downlink hub receive antenna diameter m
Downlink hub receive antenna aperture efficiency e.g. 0.65
Downlink hub system noise temperature(antenna+LNA) K
Downlink hub receive antenna gain dBi
Downlink hub receive antenna G/T dB/K
Downlink satellite EIRP dBW
Downlink path loss dB
Downlink C/N dB

Uplink C/interference dB
Uplink C/N dB
Satellite C/intermod dB
Downlink C/N dB
Downlink C/interference dB
Total link C/N dB

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Any problems or comments please e-mail Eric Johnston
Copyright © 9 June 2004 Satellite Signals Ltd All Rights Reserved
Last Revision: 17 March  2005,  30 Sept 2005, 22 Aug 2007.