Method and apparatus for performing power control using the wide-band synchronization

A communications system includes first and second ground stations and a spacecraft repeater. Data signals are transmitted between ground stations by way of the repeater, together with spread-spectrum ranging signals. Uplink rain attenuation is compensated for changing the transmitted power at the ground stations. The amount of downlink attenuation is determined by measuring the total carrier-to-noise ratio in three paths, station 1 to station 2, station 2 to station 1, and station 1 to station 1. With these three values of total attenuation, the two downlink attenuations and the number of active signals traversing the repeater can be determined. The downlink attenuations are converted to uplink attenuations, and used to control the transmitters.