A New Broadband Magic Tee Design for Ka-Band Satellite Communications

This letter deals with the design, electromagnetic simulation, and test results of a novel broadband Magic Tee for Ka-band (25.5-27 GHz) satellite communications. Novel matching structure is implemented in the Magic Tee, which results in better electrical performances over broad bandwidth. The designed Magic Tee is realized using electro-discharge machining fabrication technique for achieving stringent dimensional accuracy. The measured bandwidth of the Magic Tee is approximately 16% with a maximum measured in-band insertion loss of 0.2 dB. The simulation results of the developed Magic Tee are compared with measured results using a vector network analyzer showing excellent agreement. The Magic Tee introduced in this letter can be used for designing a monopulse comparator for low earth orbit satellite tracking applications since the amplitude imbalance and phase imbalance of the Magic Tee are negligible, which result in excellent tracking performances.