Terasat BUC hiccups

Read the manuals for the two BUCs

The 10W BUC may work with 24V or 48V DC supply.
The 25W BUC may need 48V supply.
Check with Terrasat.

You need to be able to communicate with the 25W BUC before you use it to set parameters gain or ALC level etc.  There is probably a MUTE/UNMUTE control also.

You need to set hub modem TX to a reasonable output level and also set the BUC gain to a reasonable level. Avoid extremes.  Adjust the level cautiously so as to not overdrive the BUC.  Each 1 dB step increases the power by a factor of 1.26.  If you are at 20W and go up 1 dB the power will be 25.2W.   A 3 dB increase could be a disaster, like attempting 40W; a bit like blowing up an audio amplifer loudspeaker.  The power reading is only accurate to +/- 1 dB.

Start with a low level output from the modem and a high attenuation in the BUC with a CW carrier till the satellite operator verifies that you are pointed to the correct satellite, polarisation and frequency.

For single outlink carrier from the hub, the BUC power at the hub is related to the hub dish size, the outlink bit rate and the size of the smallest diameter remote site or the most disadvantaged remote site in terms of weak beam edge location.

Only if you are transmitting multiple carriers to many remotes will the BUC power be related to the number of remotes.  The 25W C-Band IBUC has a rated multicarrier operating point at -6 dB output back off (-9 dB per each of two carriers), so if you want to transmit multiple carriers your maximum composite output power is 6.2W or 3.1W for each of two carriers.

If you want to test with a 10W BUC at the hub, consider reducing the outlink bit rate by half.

https://www.terrasatinc.com/documents/C-bandIBUCDataSheet081508.pdf

Best regards, Eric.