AvL Technologies Launches New Fixed Earth Station Product Line
Asheville, N.C., Oct. 4, 2016–Following AvL Technologies’ recent announcement about the completion of a new building and the opening of AvL Technology Park, the company is now announcing a new line of products: fixed Earth station antennas. The Earth station antennas range in size from 85cm to 5.0m and feature AvL’s unique carbon fiber and engineered carbon fiber composite reflectors, which tolerate extreme heat.
“AvL’s expansion has been in process for some time, and one of the driving forces has been the development of our fixed Earth stations and large carbon fiber reflectors, said Mike Proffitt, president of AvL. “AvL is a fiercely independent, entrepreneurial and privately-owned company, and this enables us to reinvest in the business and rapidly expand our capabilities. With our new facility, we now have ample room to house our large tools for manufacturing larger reflectors.”
AvL’s small class fixed Earth stations, now in production, feature reflector sizes from 85cm to 3.4M. Also in production is a medium class family of Earth station antennas featuring reflector sizes 3.8M, 4.6M and 5.0M. Additional medium class sizes up to 9.0m will soon be in production.
Antennas sized 85cm to 3.8M, and the 5.0M, feature offset antenna designs. The 4.6M and most larger antennas are axi-symmetrical. All AvL fixed Earth stations operate with a steel azimuth slew ring positioning system and the AvL AAQ Auto-Acquire Antenna Control System. The fixed Earth stations also will operate with AvL’s Ku-band, Ka-band and X-band feeds, and antennas with 2.0m and larger reflectors can use AvL’s C-band feed. Additionally, the 5.0M antenna is a unique design with a motorized multi-band feed system that can hold up to seven feeds.
Jim Oliver, AvL’s founder and CEO, began his career in the fixed Earth station business as an engineering manager at Scientific-Atlanta; at S-A he designed hub antenna systems that were used to launch the CNN and ESPN networks. He later was the co-founder of SatCom Technologies (now part of General Dynamics’ SatCom Technologies Group) where he was the lead designer of numerous fixed Earth stations. Jim’s experience, coupled with the expertise of AvL’s composites team, has been the catalyst to move AvL into the fixed Earth station market.
“AvL is well known for its expertise in carbon fiber and composites, and our reflectors withstand extreme heat that cause stretched aluminum reflectors to lose shape and gain. This is very important for Ka-band and higher frequency antennas,” said Proffitt. “Our current Earth station business produces antennas in the same sizes for our vehicle-mount and flyaway product families, and we will expand into larger fixed Earth stations in the near future.”
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