Patent ID: 7280496

Claim:
An apparatus for coupling a satellite to an earth terminal, comprising: a plurality of inputs of the satellite configured to receive a plurality of digital uplink signals; an autoscaling digital multiplexer of the satellite configured to digitally multiplex said plurality of digital uplink signals to produce a digital composite signal; a digital modulator of the satellite configured to digitally modulate said digital composite signal to produce a digitally modulated composite signal; an input of the earth terminal configured to receive said digitally modulated composite signal; a digital demodulator of the earth terminal configured to digitally demodulate said digitally modulated composite signal received by said input of the earth terminal to produce a second digital composite signal; an autoscaling digital demultiplexer of the earth terminal configured to digitally separate said second digital composite signal into a second plurality of digital uplink signals; and a modulator of the earth terminal configured to modulate said second plurality of digital uplink signals to produce a plurality of modulated analog signals.