New Fibre Solution Reduces Installation Cabling Requirements

 Cobham SATCOM has released a Fibre Optic Solution suitable for use with several of its leading Sea Tel VSAT antennas. The complete fibre kits are designed to improve installation possibilities by replacing the standard multiple coax cables from the below deck equipment (BDE) to the above deck equipment (ADE – the antenna), with a single, ultra-low IF loss fibre optic cable.

“Running multiple coax cables over significant distances on large vessels can be very problematic in terms of the initial installation, maintenance and antenna performance, which may impact on quality and availability of the voice calling and data connectivity on board,” explains Darren Manning, Senior Product Manager, Cobham SATCOM.

Cobham SATCOM has developed Sea Tel Fibre Solutions Kits for the Sea Tel 4012GX, XX12, XX09G2/XX10 and 97XX antenna systems. Each kit contains a simple 1U rack mountable BDE interface, which receives the coax cables and is linked by fibre cable of any length to an ADE interface that is typically installed in the radome base (no modifications or additions to the equipment frame are needed). All necessary interface cabling is included making the kits ideal for existing and new installations.

Status LEDs on the front panel of the BDE enclosure and on the top of the ADE interface box provide visual status of the fibre optic link, enabling engineers to make a quick diagnosis on the health of the connection between the BDE and ADE should an issue with the vessel’s communication service arise.

“Using a single fibre optic cable is a much smarter, more efficient solution than running multiple cables over very long distances, which can be a huge challenge when developing communication networks for large ships, offshore vessels and platforms,” concludes Manning.