A combining apparatus for use in a satellite communication system and a method for using the same. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises: a plurality of antennas that each have a transmit aperture and a receive aperture and are operable to receive correlated signals from a satellite, wherein the receive aperture is operable to receive one of the signals from the satellite and determine its signal quality; a combiner communicably coupled to the plurality of antennas to combine multiple signals received from the plurality of antennas into one signal, wherein the combiner is operable to determine which signals received by the plurality of antennas are to be combined into the one signal based, at least in part, on at least one signal quality metric regarding the signals, the at least one signal quality metric being received from one or more tracking receivers external to the combiner; and a modem communicably coupled to receive the one signal from the combiner, wherein the modem is operable to send information to the plurality of antennas via the combiner as if only a single antenna is coupled to the combiner and the combiner is operable to aggregate information for the modem received from antennas in the plurality of antennas as if one single antenna provided the information to the combiner.

A receiver (1) includes a frequency finite difference calculator (14) that sets, among a plurality of frequency components constituting a first frequency signal, a frequency component other than frequency components including notches detected by signal-strength finite difference calculators (13_1 and 13_2) as a reference frequency component and calculates a relative phase of a frequency component of a second frequency signal corresponding to the reference frequency component, and a combiner (19) that adjusts, according to a calculation result by a relative-phase calculator, a phase of the second frequency signal and, then, compensates the frequency component including the notch among the plurality of frequency components constituting the first frequency signal with the corresponding frequency component of the second frequency signal.

Methods and apparatus for facilitating the use of a plurality of antenna beams for communications purposes are described. In at least some embodiments beam priority information is periodically exchanged. Multiple timers are used to ensure beam information is exchanged at intervals intended to facilitate reliable beam synchronization and to control switching to one or more alternative beams in a predictable manner in the event beam change information or beam synchronization information is lost. In some but not all embodiments a wideband beam is used to communicate beam synchronization information when synchronization using narrower beams used for normal data communication is lost.

An iterative detection and decoding (IDD) circuit is provided. The iterative detection and decoding (IDD) circuit is configured to perform M outer iterations on a received signal, and N.sub.i inner iterations are performed during the i.sup.th outer iteration of the M outer iterations, where M is an integer greater than 1, i is an integer less than or equal to M, and N.sub.1 to N.sub.M are integers and include at least two different values.

Systems and methods are provided for a network to indicate beamforming information to user equipment (UE) for identification and measurement of reference signals. For example, a network may indicate whether all the reference signals are beamformed or not, or which reference signals are using the same transmission beamforming on the time domain, the frequency domain, or both time and frequency domains. In other embodiments, a network may indicate combining or averaging information to a UE.

A space-time line coding system includes: in multiple antenna communication configured by at least one transmission antenna and at least two reception antennas, a transmitting end which encodes two information symbols using channel state information and sequentially transmits two encoded information symbols to a receiving end using the at least one transmission antenna; and a receiving end which receives two encoded information symbols using at least the two reception antennas and combines the received signals without channel state information.

A combining apparatus for use in a satellite communication system and a method for using the same. In one embodiment, the apparatus comprises: a plurality of antennas that each have a transmit aperture and a receive aperture and are operable to receive correlated signals from a satellite, wherein the receive aperture is operable to receive one of the signals from the satellite and determine its signal quality; a combiner communicably coupled to the plurality of antennas to combine multiple signals received from the plurality of antennas into one signal, wherein the combiner is operable to determine which signals received by the plurality of antennas are to be combined into the one signal based, at least in part, on at least one signal quality metric regarding the signals, the at least one signal quality metric being received from one or more tracking receivers external to the combiner; and a modem communicably coupled to receive the one signal from the combiner, wherein the modem is operable to send information to the plurality of antennas via the combiner as if only a single antenna is coupled to the combiner and the combiner is operable to aggregate information for the modem received from antennas in the plurality of antennas as if one single antenna provided the information to the combiner.

Aspects of the disclosure are directed to providing signals utilizing two or more sources. As may be implemented in accordance with one or more embodiments, a method and/or apparatus involves processing respective signals carrying broadcast data provided by different receiver circuits that respectively receive the same broadcast data. The signals received from the respective receiver circuits are equalized, and corresponding sets of the broadcast data from each of the equalized signals are selectively combined to provide a combined signal carrying the broadcast data. This approach may be used, for example, to generate broadcast data utilizing source data from two or more receivers, such as may be received on different signal mediums (e.g., over-the-air digital radio and Wi-Fi digital radio), and therein providing enhanced reception.

There is provided an antenna arrangement for a radio transceiver device for simultaneous use of two polarization directions. The antenna arrangement comprises at least two baseband chains. The antenna arrangement further comprises a first set of antenna elements of a first polarization direction, and a second set of antenna elements of a second polarization direction. The antenna arrangement comprises an analog distribution network operatively connecting the at least two baseband chains to both sets of antenna elements. All of the baseband chains are operatively connected to each respective antenna element of the first set and to each respective antenna element of the second set via the analog distribution network.

An apparatus, system, and method for a receive function in a phased array including an M by N array of antenna elements, where M and N are the number of rows and columns, respectively, in the array of antenna elements. Each antenna element is provided with a combiner. The phased array apparatus and system includes M row beam-formers plus N column beam-formers. The row beam-formers supply a progressively phase-shifted carrier signal to the combiners where the signal received by the corresponding antenna element is combined with a phase-shifted carrier signal. The outputs of the combiners in each column of antenna elements is sent to a corresponding column beam-former. The outputs of the column beam-formers are combined to recover the signal that is desired to be received.