AN INNOVATIVE, lightweight, 12.25m-diameter dish antenna is to be flown on a Hughes HS-601 high-power communications satellite in 1998, to serve a mobile-telephone system for Asia Pacific Mobile Telecommunications (APMT), a consortium of four Chinese and two Singapore companies.
The APMT satellite will provide 16,000 duplex circuits simultaneously. Calls between mobile users on land, at sea or in the air will go directly through the satellite in the L-band frequency. For calls between mobile users and fixed telephones, the satellite will use the Ku band for links to terrestrial gateways. The antenna will allow high-power transmissions to reach small terminals in portable telephones.
Source: Flight International