Spread spectrum multiple access communications experiment through a satellite

The feasibility of using spread spectrum pseudonoise coding techniques as a means of providing random multiple access communications through a satellite is studied. Principles involved in the transmission and reception of a spread spectrum signal are reviewed; experiments involving widely-separated earth stations and the ATS satellite are described. The maximum number of simultaneous users possible with a spread spectrum under given limits of SNR and audio channel size is determined. Other tests show that the performance of spread spectrum signals under various conditions of limiting and audio channel SNR degradations with close separation of carrier frequencies is similar to that of sinusoidal signals. In addition, the simultaneous transmission of a spread spectrum and a TV signal, both of acceptable quality, is found to be possible under certain conditions.