Method and apparatus for tailoring carrier power requirements according to availability in layered modulation systems

A method of transmitting a modulation signal in layers having a first layer signal (410) having first signal symbols and a second signal layer (418) having second signal symbols, comprising the steps of: determining a CL first carrier power modulation signal the first layer, according at least in part with a clear sky margin ML of the first signal layer, and an availability of the first signal layer; determining a second power CL modulation carrier signal the second layer according to at least partially clear sky margin MU of the second layer signal and an availability of the second layer signal; modulating the first signal symbols according to a first carrier to the carrier power of the first layer modulation signal; modulating the symbols of the second signal according to a second carrier to carrier power modulation of the second layer determined signal to generate the signal layered modulation, in which the first carrier is placed in random phase with respect to the second carrier; transmitting the first signal symbols and symbols of the second modulated signal; demodulate and decode the layer of the second signal to produce the second signal symbols; characterized by: recode and demodulate the symbols of the second signal and subtracting the symbols of the second encoded signal and remodulated signal layered modulation to produce the first layer signal and demodulating the first layer signal to produce the first symbol signal; in which the margin clear sky of the second layer signal is less than the margin clear sky the first layer signal when the availability of the first signal layer and the availability of the second signal layer are substantially equal.