Hi,
For a digital bird with a 10 GHz downlink, would it make sense to use DVB-S for the downlink?
If you did, I think that most specialised part of a ground station would be an appropriate LNB that will mix 10.0 to 10.5 GHz down to IF. Demodulation could then be performed with ordinary consumer grade DVB-S set top boxes and PC based DVB-S interfaces.
Out of the box, a consumer DVB-S STB (Set Top Box) can handle both audio channels and video channels. The DVB-S protocol can also multiplex data (PBBS message forwarding? APRS?) along with multiple audio and video channels on the one carrier.
The satellite could have multiple uplinks on multiple bands, eg FM voice uplink(s) on 2m, 9k6 data uplink on 70cm, and video/high speed data on shorter wavelengths. So, with say a 2m mobile rig, and a consumer DVB-S setup (with a 10 GHz LNB) you could QSO via the bird. If you want to get into data, video or digital voice, the bird would do that do.
73, ZL2WRW Ross Whenmouth