Transponders

In telecommunication, a transponder is one of two types of devices. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight transponder is an automated transceiver in an aircraft that emits a coded identifying signal in response to an interrogating received signal. In a communications satellite, a satellite transponder receives signals over a range of uplink frequencies usually from a satellite ground station, amplifies them, and re-transmits them on a different set of downlink frequencies to receivers on Earth, often without changing the content of the received signal or signals.

The term is a portmanteau for transmitter-responder. It is variously abbreviated as XPDR, XPNDR, TPDR or TP.

A communications satellite’s channels are called transponders, because each is a separate transceiver or repeater. With digital video data compression and multiplexing, several video and audio channels may travel through a single transponder on a single wideband carrier. Original analog video only has one channel per transponder, with subcarriers for audio and automatic transmission identification service (ATIS). Non-multiplexed radio stations can also travel in single channel per carrier (SCPC) mode, with multiple carriers (analog or digital) per transponder. This allows each station to transmit directly to the satellite, rather than paying for a whole transponder, or using landlines to send it to an earth station for multiplexing with other stations.

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