Orthomode Transducer - Terrestrial Microwave

Terrestrial Microwave

An ortho-mode transducer is also a component commonly found on high capacity terrestrial microwave radio links. In this arrangement, two parabolic reflector dishes operate in a point to point microwave radio path (4 GHz to 85 GHz) with four radios, two mounted on each end. On each dish a T-shaped ortho-mode transducer is mounted at the rear of the feed, separating the signal from the feed into two separate radios, one operating in the horizontal polarity, and the other in the vertical polarity. This arrangement is used to increase the aggregate data throughput between two dishes on a point to point microwave path, or for fault-tolerance redundancy. Certain types of outdoor microwave radios have integrated orthomode transducers and operate in both polarities from a single radio unit, performing XPIC within the radio unit itself.