Specifications

Glossary
Term Description
Earth Technical Earth: A connection that ensures all equipment chassis within a
rack are at the same potential (“commoned”), usually by connecting a
wire between the technical earth terminal and a suitable point on the
rack. Also called a Functional Earth.
Protective Earth: A connection that ensures all exposed conductive
surfaces are at the same electrical potential as the surface of the Earth,
to avoid the risk of electrical shock if a person touches a device in which
an insulation fault has occurred. In the vent of an insulation fault (a “short
circuit”), a very high current flows, which triggers an overcurrent
protection device (fuse, circuit breaker, etc.) that disconnects the power
supply. Also called a Safety Earth.
EBU European Broadcast Union.
EIA Electronics Industries Association (USA).
EMC Electromagnetic Compatibility.
Encryption Encoding of a transmission to prevent access without the appropriate
decryption equipment and authorisation.
Ethernet The most widely used local area network (LAN) defined by the IEEE as the
802.3 standard. Transmission speeds vary according to the configuration.
Ethernet uses copper or fibre-optic cables.
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute. Body created in 1988,
responsible for standardization of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) within Europe. These technologies include
telecommunications and broadcasting.
FCC Federal Communications Commission. A US government agency,
established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is responsible for
regulating all non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum
(including radio and television broadcasting), and all interstate
telecommunications (wire, satellite and cable) as well as all international
communications that originate or terminate in the United States.
FDM Frequency Division Multiplex: A common communication channel for a
number of signals, each with its own allotted frequency.
FEC Forward Error Correction: A method of detecting and correcting errors in
a transmission. The data to be transmitted is processed through an
algorithm that generates code bits that are added to the message. The
code bits are used at the receiving end to check the accuracy of the
transmission and correct any errors.
Footprint The area of the Earth’s surface covered by a satellite’s downlink
transmission. Also (generally) the area from which the satellite can
receive uplink transmissions.
FTP File Transfer Protocol: A protocol used to transfer files over a TCP/IP
network (Internet, UNIX, etc.). For example, after developing the HTML
pages for a Web site on a local machine, they are typically uploaded to
the Web server, using FTP. Unlike e-mail programs in which graphics and
program files have to be attached, FTP is designed to handle binary files
directly and does not add the overhead of encoding and decoding the
data.
G.703 The ITU-T standard which defines the physical and electrical
characteristics of hierarchical digital interfaces.
SBM75e Series Modulator Installation and Operation Manual
B-5