Problem 45806. SatCom #8: Satellite Link Budget

Satellite and Space Engineering - Problem #8
This is part of a series of problems looking at topics in satellite and space communications and systems engineering.
lf you have competed the previous exercises in this series, you will have more-or-less everything that you need to complete this problem.
Knowing the parameters of a radio transmitter and receiver, determine the wanted signal power (dBW) in the radio receiver (in this case we are thinking of a satellite receiver, but the approach is generic to all radio receivers).
You are given power (dBW) of the signal applied to the transmitting dish antenna, the diameters (m) and efficiencies (%) of the transmitting and receiving dishes, the path length (km) between the transmitting and receiving antennas, and the frequency of the transmitted signal (GHz).
Hint: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_budget#Equation - For this simplified exercise, you should ignore transmitter, receiver and miscelaneous losses.
Example: For a Ka-Band GSO space-to-Earth link at 17.7 GHz and of path length 41,130.13 km, where the satellite antenna has an input RF power of 9.5 dBW, a diameter of 75cm and an efficiency of 70%, and the signal is received on an Earth-station antenna of diameter 65cm and efficiency 65%, the RF power in the satellite receiver is around -119.1 dBW.
Some future problems in this series will build on work done in previous problems, so if you get a working solution I suggest you hang onto the code!
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38.46% Correct | 61.54% Incorrect
Last Solution submitted on Mar 03, 2025

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