A circularly-polarized antenna for contoured beam coverage of Europe

a contoured beam antenna comprising a high-performance circularly-polarized feed array and a single offset parabolic reflector has been successfully integrated and tested. The basic coverage requirements for Europe, and parts of North Africa and the Middle East were met, with the coverage zone lying within the -3 dB contour. The minimum gain was in excess of the 28 dBiC goal, and cross-polar discrimination at the frequency design was better than 28 dB, with most of the stations in excess of 30 dB. Comparison at 11.2 GHz between experimental results and theoretical predictions showed tat 75 percent of the results agreed within the measurement accuracy of + or - 0.3 dB.