Abstract: A method, device, and machine readable medium to communicate from a base station having a smart antenna system to a user terminal. The method includes providing a downlink channel for transmitting downlink data from the base station to the user terminal, providing an associated channel for the base station to receive an uplink response signal from the user terminal in response to the downlink data. The associated channel is associated, and has a predefined relationship, with the downlink channel. The method further includes providing an uplink data channel, distinct from the associated uplink channel, for the base station to receive uplink data from the user terminal.

Abstract: A method, communication device, and machine-readable medium. The method includes sending a first poll from a first base station having a smart antenna system to a first user terminal. The first base station receives a first uplink response signal from the first user terminal as a result of the first user terminal successfully receiving the first poll. The first base station also receives at least one other uplink response signals as a result of at least one other remote user terminal successfully receiving a second poll from a second base station. The first base station transmits downlink data to the first user terminal using a downlink smart antenna processing strategy for transmitting to the first user terminal, including mitigating interference to the first and one or more other remote communication devices from which the first base station received a first or other uplink response signal and that may be receiving during transmission of downlink data to the first user terminal.

Abstract: The invention relates to data transmission, especially between a satellite and land-mobile terminals, which is self-adaptive and hybrid, i.e. a system which encodes data in sets of blocks including redundant symbols and redundant blocks, and provides automatic retransmission of lost data blocks and in parallel, correction of detected errors within received blocks.In the embodiment described, the data is encoded in a Reed-Solomon code in a two-dimensional mode. Each set of data is transmitted automatically and continuously; the receiver registers the data received and corrects detected errors in the relevant block up to a threshold number; if the number of detected errors in the block exceeds the threshold, the block is erased. When sufficient data has been received to decode the complete set of blocks, the receiver transmits a reception acknowledgement signal repeatedly.

Abstract: An emergency telecommunications system wherein the distress signals are transmitted repeatedly in successive sequences each comprised of a detect interval during which an alarm signal is transmitted and of a message transmit interval during which the distress message itself is transmitted indicating particularly the identity of the ship, its location and the nature of distress. During the detect interval, the transmitted signal is comprised of a carrier phase modulated by a sub-carrier, the frequency of the latter being a multiple of the information transmission speed. During the message transmit interval, the information is superposed to the sub-carrier by phase binary modulation. The presence of an alarm signal during each detect interval is detected in an alarm receiver monitoring the receive frequency band simultaneously in several channels of different narrow bandwidths so as to generate a control signal which indicates the presence of a distress signal in anyone of the channels.