Telstar Bandwidth (1962)

[Wilko]

Hey all.

Was wondering if anyone knew what the bandwidth was on the first communication satellite, Telstar. Preferably the amount of calls that could simultaneously be sent through it would be most useful.

Bonus points if someone can point me towards a website or book with this information printed. I did a quick Google search but came up with nothing.

 

[Urwumpe]

I think the limit was only the signal to noise, but no real hard limit - it just received signals, amplified them and re-emitted them. Also the amount of phone calls would have been pretty limited, as you only had 20 Minutes time before it went out of signal range because of its orbit.

As Telstar failed already after a few days, it is hard to say how much in reality but:

http://www.ssloral.com/html/pressreleases/020710.html

says that it was able to transmit one television channel or 500 telephone channels.