Abstract

On-channel repeaters for Digital Video Broadcasting either Terrestrial or Handheld (DVB-T/T2/H/SH) are receiving increasing attention due to the advantages they can offer for Single Frequency Network (SFN) deployment and coverage. This article presents several issues and tradeoffs related to the design of such systems. These issues include echo cancellation and channel estimation for stable operation of the repeater, pre-distortion to improve amplifier linearity and Multiple Channel Power Amplification (MCPA) that allow multiple radio channels to use a single amplifier hence reducing the costs of the overall network deployment.

Keywords: On-channel repeater (OCR), SFN, DVB-T, MCPA, training sequence, Carrier to Noise Ratio, low cost OCR, Mean Rejection Ratio (MRR), DVB-T signals, AMPLIFIER