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Sea Japan: Cobham in first compact Ku-band antenna installations for JMA

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Satellite communications equipment provider Cobham is growing its presence in the Japanese market and has installed its first Sailor 600 VSAT Ku antennas on two Japan Meteorological Agency vessels.

It is the first installation of the super-light, compact 60cm terminal that Cobham has done in Japan. The antennas were installed on the meteorological vessels R/V Ryofu Maru and R/V Keifu Maru

“This is new hardware for us, and particularly new for Japan,” Stephan Romer Jorgensen, regional sales director – APAC for Cobham, told Seatrade Maritime News at Sea Japan 2018. “They were two vessels that had existing FleetBroadband on board and they were the first ones in Japan to adopt our small Ku band antennas. It’s a size that allows it to go on the majority of ships.

Explaining how Cobham is able to offer of the required level of performance on a small antenna he said: “Antennas are getting smaller because of new satellite technology. Now you have multitude of overlapping small beams which makes the size of the antenna less critical because you will always be near the centre of beam.

“That is what both the Inmarsat Global Xpress (GX) and our Sailor 600 Ku takes advantage of.”

Jorgensen said they were also seeing a strong interest from the Japanese market for equipment for Inmarsat’s GX Ka-band service. “We have our antennas type-approved for Japan-flagged vessels.”