ETL Systems has launched the next evolution of StingRay, its RF over fiber range, with additional functionality and flexibility for satellite operations. RF over Fiber is a reliable way of moving satellite signals over longer distances than standard coaxial cables. With fiber modules allowing antennas and IRD modems to be linked from 100m to over 500km, this is a more efficient and effective medium to transport IF, L and C-band transmit and receive satellite signals over longer distances.
The new range will be incorporated into ETL’s next-generation Genus platform, designed to offer increased modularity and flexibility for ground stations, including meeting MEO and LEO requirements. ETL’s new StingRay RF over Fibre products cover a comprehensive range of frequency bands including new C-Band links operating from over 500MHz to 6,725MHz.
The new StingRay system offers manual gain control (MGC) as well as fixed gain and automatic gain control (AGC) modes, providing operators with greater flexibility while setting links up for optimised system performance.
In addition, the platform can house StingRay modules alongside ETL’s Falcon frequency converters, ALTO amplifiers, switches, splitters and even small RF matrices/routers within the same indoor or outdoor chassis. Combining these functions within the same chassis offers a reduction in cost and rack space requirements and improves resilience.
Along with improved security aspects (SNMPv3 and HTTPS) included with the Genus chassis, the updated StingRay modules offer improved RF performance while maintaining the same industry-leading capacity of up to 32 optical transmit and/or receiver modules within a single 2U indoor chassis.
Use Case of a StingRay Product
As an example of how the new StingRay range can be combined with other ETL products in the Genus platform: at a remote antenna site, 4 x StingRay L-Band Tx modules could be housed with 4 x Falcon downconverters (eg. Ku to L-Band) to transmit the downlink signals across the site to the receiver location, where the StingRay L-Band Rx modules can be combined with RF processing products such as matrices, switches, splitters etc, dependent on requirements. Any of these ETL components can be housed within Genus 19” indoor chassis or the new Genus IP65-rated outdoor unit.Esen Bayar, ETL Systems' chief executive officer, said: “StingRay in Genus is a major step forward in ETL’s product development and we are very proud of what we’ve achieved. With the flexibility of growing importance to businesses working across the satcoms industry, as well as the pillars of resilience and redundancy, the ETL engineers have meticulously worked to create a truly unique product addressing the needs of the industry.”
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