Iridium repeater installation

Guidleines to ensure a successful Iridium repeater installation

Iridium satellite communication is a two-way system, which means that there is an incoming (downlink/RX) signal path and an outgoing (uplink/TX) signal path.

There two outdoor antennas with coaxial cables, and two indoor antennas with coaxial cables.

All the antennas are identical and can be used indoors or outdoors; there are four of them in a standard single-zone system.

Outdoor antenna installation

To avoid uplink/TX signals being received by the downlink/RX antenna, causing an unwanted feedback loop, the TX antenna is placed 1 metre higher than the RX antenna.
Both antennas are tilted away from each other by 10 degrees and should be as far apart as the supplied cables will allow.

Indoor antenna installation

The indoor antennas didn’t need to be tilted away from each other, at different heights, like the outdoor antennas.
Indoor antennas can be mounted on the underside of ceiling tiles, for example.
Recommended antenna spacing is 3-4 metres.

Antenna cable lengths

Iridium kits are supplied with coaxial cables to connect outdoor and indoor antennas to the system.

There are some options to extend cable lengths beyond the standard offering.

Optical repeater cables
IRIDKIT01 Optical ODU	Outdoor antenna cables Standard: 5m LMR400 Optional: Max 7m LMR400 or 13m LMR600
IRIDKIT01 Optical rack-mounted 19″ IDU	Indoor antenna cables Standard: 10m LMR240 Optional: 20m LMR400
IRIDKIT01C Optical compact IDU	Indoor antenna cables Standard: 10m LMR240 Optional: 20m LMR400

Coaxial repeater cables	Specification
IRIDKIT01X Coaxial repeater unit	Outdoor antenna cables Standard: 5m LMR400 Optional: Max 7m LMR400 or 13m LMR600
IRIDKIT01X Coaxial repeater unit	Indoor antenna cables Standard: 10m LMR240 Optional: 20m LMR400

Iridium main page

Optical repeaters

Coaxial repeaters

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