Just watched us land, again, on Mars. 2.5G. Very soft. Lander's
made for 40G. Looks like we rolled up, after all the bouncing, and
are on our side.

Simply amazing engineering masterpieces. Too bad the Realvideo feed
wasn't as good as the lander....(c;

They even think they have the comm glitch with Spirit figured out,
tonight.

On the political front, it was amazing to see Gore standing there like
a dunce (after he invented the internet, of course) while Gov
Schwartzenegger was pouring questions out to the engineers and soaking
up the explanations that seemed to be way over Gore's level of
competence. Of course, while Arnold was in the room, all the other
VIP guests were simply ignored....especially by the NASA
employees...(c;

Imagine transmitting on your marine VHF handitalkie and being heard by
powerful receivers on another planet. That's exactly what was taking
place as the spacecraft sent back audio tones to let us know how it
was doing. Just the communications engineering of it is simply
amazing.


Larry W4CSC

Is it just me or did the US and UK just capture 1/3
of the world's sweetest oil supply? What idiot wants to
GIVE IT BACK?!!

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:46:03 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

Imagine transmitting on your marine VHF handitalkie and being heard by
powerful receivers on another planet. That's exactly what was taking
place as the spacecraft sent back audio tones to let us know how it
was doing. Just the communications engineering of it is simply
amazing.

Scenario:

Tense faces bent over the consoles, waiting for the first sign that
the lander is alive. As hope begins to fade we receive the
electrifying signal:

"Can you hear me now?"


__________________________________________________ __________
Glen "Wiley" Wilson usenet1 SPAMNIX at worldwidewiley dot com
To reply, lose the capitals and do the obvious.

Take a look at cpRepeater, my NMEA data integrator, repeater, and
logger at http://www.worldwidewiley.com/

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 21:31:49 GMT, "Glen \"Wiley\" Wilson"
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 05:46:03 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

Imagine transmitting on your marine VHF handitalkie and being heard by
powerful receivers on another planet. That's exactly what was taking
place as the spacecraft sent back audio tones to let us know how it
was doing. Just the communications engineering of it is simply
amazing.

Scenario:

Tense faces bent over the consoles, waiting for the first sign that
the lander is alive. As hope begins to fade we receive the
electrifying signal:

"Can you hear me now?"

Factoid:

"The sensitivity of our deep-space tracking antennas located around
the world is truly amazing. The antennas must capture Voyager
information from a signal so weak that the power striking the antenna
is only 10 exponent - 16 watts (1 part in 10 quadrillion). A
modern-day electronic digital watch operates at a power level 20
billion times greater than this feeble level."

Can you hear me now indeed. :)

Later,

Tom
S. Woodstock, CT
----------
The years will bring their Anodyne,
But I shall never quite forget,
The fish that I had counted mine
And lost before they reached the net.

Colin Ellis, "The Devot Angler" quoted
in A. R. Macdougall, Jr's "The Trout
Fisherman's Bedside Book" (1963)