Product Description
Includes chapters on orbital mechanics, spacecraft construction, satellite-path radio wave propagation, modulation techniques, multiple access, and a detailed analysis of the communications link.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 4 reviews)

In Reality, the Simplified, Friendly, and Useful Results of Vector Calculus and Hardcore Newtonian-Maxwellian Intuition

The first edition of this book was assigned to me as part of a satellite communication's course.

Given that the book's focus is on various aspects of an end-to-end satellite communication's link, I must admit that the inclusion of some of the material can seem rather mysterious. In particular, the Orbital Mechanics in chapter 2 (of 1st edition) doesn't at first appear to fit with the rest of the text.

My reading of the book in school and at Hughes/Boeing Satellite Systems revealed that this was a great book. Somehow, mysteriously, always containing passages that were brief and accurate, but also extremely useful and easy-to-understand. With hindsight, even the chapter on Orbital Mechanics with its bit of vector calculus now seems a very clever way of stating the obvious. Mathematical physics not only remains extremely important and necessary but also provides the means, or in other words methods, by which the results of this text were developed. It's only in the name of efficiency that most of the text states its results without the heavy-duty machinary of mathematical physics showing.

I can now easily see and easily state that, in reality, the rest of the book contains the DIRECT RESULTS of vector calculus and Hardcore Newtonian-Maxwellian Intuition. It is a tribute to the politeness and virtue of Pratt and Bostian that despite their understanding of vector calculus in orbital mechanics and electromagnetics, their text has only the barest traces of such advanced and extremely demanding techniques.

Superficially, the text appears simple. In fact, it looks almost vocational until one ponders upon the engineering and physical situations involved, seeing them with the eyes of historical perspective.
February 02, 2008

This is NOT 'Satellites for Dummies'...

I recently took a Satellite Communications course at the university I attend and this was the textbook. I must say this book is really expensive for what you're likely to get out of it; as the book doesn't really seem to have much of a point. It isn't very well written/edited for a book you would want to learn the subject matter from if you didn't know anything about satellite communications; and it doesn't include enough usable, pertinent data for keeping as a reference book for experienced users. Mostly the book explains concepts in a convoluted and confusing manner, doesn't fully explain them, or adds all sorts of extraneous material not explained in the book into the review sections (which we used as some of our assignments). If you like taking Microsoft computer certification tests, enjoy brain-teasers and riddles, you're already an electrical engineer/astrophysics major with a few years experience, or your last name is "Hawking" you may find this to be a good book. But, if you know little to nothing about satellite communications (orbital mechanics, transmission encoding methods, frequency spectrums, theory of radio transmissions, etc.) my suggestion is look for another book on the subject and get this one from your local library. If you MUST buy this book like I did, do yourself a favor by getting it 'Used' and save yourself some money. By the way, I was told this book is no longer used for this course for some of these same reasons.
January 18, 2004

Not a bad book but needs significant improvement

I am a lecturer and used this book for my class.

I like the material presented in this book. It contains many examples and discussion on real applications. However the organization of this book is not good. It is just like putting several people's work together without appropriate coordination of the material.

As a second edition of the book, it contains too much errors. You can find many errors in almost each chapter. I have to check carefully before I use their examples, equations and solutions. Otherwise I will get embarassed by letting the students pointing it out in my lecture. It is absolutely a shame.

If you are an engineer who are already familiar with data communications and can tell those errors, this book is a good choice. But if you are a student, I sugget you stay away from it unless it is the textbook chosen by your lecturer.
September 19, 2003

Great for a beginner

I read this book as a reference rather than a formal class textbook. As a self-studying student, the first book I bought to study satellite communications was the famouns 'Digital Satellite Communications' ritten by Dr. Tri t. Ha. It is actually a quite good book. However it was just too much for a eginner. Too much mathmatical fomulars and too less literatual explanation for a new concept. It took 8 months to read just one third of the book during my militarry service. Since I have been assigned to a digital satellite earthstation construction project recently, I needed a new book that explains more practically and easilly. This 'Satellite Communications' by Dr. Timothy Pratt and Dr. Charles W. Bostian.

To cover allmost all area of the satellite communications, the overall composition is simillar to other books. At charper 3, 'SPACECRAFT', I could find fine explanation on the satellite beam and coverage. Especially, this helps me with understanding and analyzing the SRS-CDROM data. This is really great for me. Some basic and important concepts like Noise, C/N and G/T are very well descibed in chapter 4, 'SATELLITE LINK DESIGN'. Freankly, most books tend to jump to mathmatical method to explain concepts. The author spared more pages to explain the concept and the physical meaning of the terminology. I know this is a very eficient and simple way to show the existing and potential meaning of terminology. But there are hundreds of good reasons to have this kind of kind book for a slowly understanding engineer like me. :-) At chapter 5 and 6 to explain the modulation, multiplexing and multiple access, there are less fomulas and more tables and graphs. First, I read over those two chapters and went back to Dr. Ha's book above to learn the mathmatical expression. That's how you can expand the concept to individual field applications. The 'Design of Large Antennas' in chapter 9, 'EARTH STATION TECHNOLOGY' was helpful for me, too. It is pretty hard to find propper information about large antennas ahtough you have to face a bunch of confusing terminologies when you visit antenna company web sites like Vertex, RSI (recently merged to Vertex to make VertexRSI), or Datron.

I believe the combination of this ook, 'Satellite Communications' and 'Digital Satellite Communications' will give you almost all knowledge you need from fundamental to practical level in satellite communications engineering field.
May 16, 2000

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Business Strategies For Satellite Systems (Artech House Space Applications)
by D. K. Sachdev

Wireless Communications & Networks (2nd Edition)
by William Stallings

Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design, 3rd Edition
by Constantine A. Balanis

Wireless Crash Course, Second Edition
by Paul Bedell

Business Data Communications and Networking
by FitzGerald, Dennis