Abstract: The present invention relates to a technique for increasing the rain margin of a satellite communication system which includes a satellite capable of transmitting multiple concurrent beams comprising time slot bursts in a TDMA mode. The present technique creates a small pool of TDMA time slots which are dedicated or formed at some instant of time by the rearrangement of traffic to permit the power normally transmitted in any portion of the multiple concurrent beams to be applied to one beam in a multiple fixed beam or limited scanning beam system or any portion of the beams which are directed at one ground station in a multiple unlimited scanning beam system for accessing a ground station experiencing, for example, a fade condition.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a cooperating arrangement for a pair of space diversity stations (30 and 40) interconnected by a communication link (20) wherein each station normally communicates independently with a remote point (12) of the system while handling traffic related to a separate service region (32 and 42) or separate portion of an overall service region. At the occurrence of a fade condition at one of the two stations, the fading station alerts the other station of the pair of such condition, and both stations are enabled to cause the normal two-way communications between the faded station and the distant point to be routed over the communication link for two-way transmission between the non-faded station of the pair and the distant point along with the normal associated two-way transmissions between the non-faded station and the distant point.