Satellites : general discussion and musings

[hoi.polloi]

if an image depicts a rocket and I see no evidently absurd details there (like photographers near the jet engine at the launch), I suppose it is an image of a real rocket (not photoshopped image, not a dream, not a hallucination) until somebody proves the contrary. It is based on such experience:

1) I travelled several times by jet air planes.
2) I know people involved in aeroindustry.
3) I know that a lot of inventions claimed to be used in space industry are applied in aeroindustry -- so it's real.
4) I personally know people that did some black market math in 1990s: they took technical data about satellites to be launched (from Indians and other foreign customers) and calculated the probability of success for the launch. Customers really wanted to know if their satellite is too heavy or too long to be launched together with another one or two. My friends' service was cheaper than official Roscosmos contract. It's very probable that no taxes were paid. But the numbers was real. It's very strange if this work was part of some hoax. I know how fake projects are made: this was apparently not the case.

That's cool. Thanks for elaborating your stance. For the record, if an image depicts anything, and it doesn't have absurd details, I don't think I should "suppose" it's a genuine image of the thing depicted. But if you'd like to, because you want indications of fakery to be only absurd, I guess you are merely robbing yourself of the ability to detect fraud, and nobody else's. And that's okay! Unless people trust you and you are leading them astray - away from the truth - then that's kind of a problem, I guess. Arguably.

As for traveling in a jet airplane or knowing people involved in the "aeroindustry" (is this specifically the industry of flying into outer space?) I am not sure what that has to do with your credibility. Cannot I or millions of others say the same thing?

Your last point is sort of getting to the crux of things, isn't it? You claim you know how fake projects are made. And this isn't like the way you know fake projects are made. Therefore, to you, it's not fake. It seems to be unstable logic to me. However, you believe what you believe, and that's alright. I am happy you are willing to share your unwillingness to doubt images you don't see as absurd in some way.

[hoi.polloi]

reichstag fireman (I will abbreviate as rf), you have been making a compelling case, in my opinion. I'd like to see it taken further, since Dmitry's arguments against your ideas have been among the weakest I've seen on this site.

So far, this is what I understand about satellites:

1. They are - by the nature of their limited design - expensive.
2. They are - by the nature of their limited design - fragile.
3. They are - by the nature of their limited design - necessarily plentiful and compact.
4. They require constant correction, maintenance and exposure to extreme risk.
5. The technology is decades old, yet they have not significantly (at all?) improved their safety against impacts. In fact, greater and greater risk of impact is reported annually due to the sheer number of them allegedly in the sky, not to mention "space junk".
6. The radiation of outer space exposes them to problems.
7. They come crashing down, but mostly "burn up" upon re-entry, which is why people are not impacted.
8. There is a large body of individuals in various industries who sell products and make money off of their existence.
9. A great deal of money is spent on research and development, yet we have apparently not seen proportional benefits to technological life on Earth.
10. Many of these people need absolutely no understanding of the science we have been discussing on this site in order to participate in the money (ad)ventures.
11. NASA lies about things orbiting the Earth, and NASA encourages related space programs to give NASA authority in some way on the subject.
12. Many of the missions to outer space which seem touched up and outright fabricated involve narratives related to satellites.


And this is what I understand about sky-wave signal-senders:

1. They are not as expensive.
2. They are not as fragile.
3. They do not need to be as compact and sophisticated.
4. They are not exposed to the extreme risk of outer space and require less maintenance.
5. The technology is older.
6. Radiation from outer space does not present as large a problem.
7. They do not frequently expire or come crashing down, bump into each other, nor are they at great risk of meteorite strikes.
8. There is a large body of individuals in various industries who sell products and make money off of their existence.
9. The technology does not need to change much, since it works fine for many many functions.
10. Many of these people need absolutely no understanding of the science we have been discussing on this site in order to participate in the money (ad)ventures.
11. NASA lies about spectrum and light behavior in regards to some missions, and NASA encourages related space programs to give NASA authority in some way on the subject.
12. There do not seem to be as many highly trumpeted, photoshopped and doctored narratives about sky-wave (if any) but many, many, many about satellites.

I admit, it is compelling!

We still need to look into a telescope and take pictures of what we see. Dmitry and rf, would you like to take a guess if we are going to see mirrors and little dishes on these floating lights in the sky? Do you have an idea if we will see lights on the dark side of the Earth, in the Earth's umbra, because much of these satellites are sending light waves down to the dark side of the Earth? How many lumens do these lights have, if they exist, and why are they on the satellites?

Taking bets now ... may the best science win!

[reichstag fireman]

A company called Sea Launch appears to be providing the ocean based launch point for many of the entertainment related satellites including those from XM Radio, Dish Networks and DirecTV here in the states. I was wondering if Heiwa may have any familiarity with the company's operations?

I'm not located too far out of Long Beach, the location of the command ship if we need any in-person pictures and if a picture of the command ship would even assist us. It's unclear as to where they keep the floating launch pad platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch_Commander

Oh God, this is crazy - it's taking the mickey. What would be the point of launching a rocket from a ship?! America has a huge amount of free land where a rocket could be launched much more safely (if the rocket space vehicle truly existed).

To go back to absolute basics here.. Has a "rocket" ever been successfully launched to any significant altitude (i.e. tens of kilometres) What is a rocket? Does it really exist? As kids we used to play at being rocket scientists - inflating (plastic) soda bottles with the tyre compressor at the filling station. We could get the bottles to shoot up maybe 100 feet! Has NASA really done any better than a bunch of nine year olds?

[hoi.polloi]

A company called Sea Launch appears to be providing the ocean based launch point for many of the entertainment related satellites including those from XM Radio, Dish Networks and DirecTV here in the states. I was wondering if Heiwa may have any familiarity with the company's operations?

I'm not located too far out of Long Beach, the location of the command ship if we need any in-person pictures and if a picture of the command ship would even assist us. It's unclear as to where they keep the floating launch pad platform.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch_Commander

Oh God, this is crazy - it's taking the mickey. What would be the point of launching a rocket from a ship?! America has a huge amount of free land where a rocket could be launched much more safely (if the rocket space vehicle truly existed).

To go back to absolute basics here.. Has a "rocket" ever been successfully launched to any significant altitude (i.e. tens of kilometres) What is a rocket? Does it really exist? As kids we used to play at being rocket scientists - inflating (plastic) soda bottles with the tyre compressor at the filling station. We could get the bottles to shoot up maybe 100 feet! Has NASA really done any better than a bunch of nine year olds?

Surely, if you are a shill and sick of posting here, this is your weakest "getaway" post! "Has NASA ever launched a rocket?" Are you serious? What happened to all your good arguments?

(Okay their story on Wickedmedia is pretty silly - and an excellent cover for being enigmatic - Bankruptcy? Moving platforms? The Russians took over? ...) but that's not science.

[reichstag fireman]

I object sir! I'm not a shill and enjoy posting here!

[reichstag fireman]

We still need to look into a telescope and take pictures of what we see. Dmitry and rf, would you like to take a guess if we are going to see mirrors and little dishes on these floating lights in the sky? Do you have an idea if we will see lights on the dark side of the Earth, in the Earth's umbra, because much of these satellites are sending light waves down to the dark side of the Earth? How many lumens do these lights have, if they exist, and why are they on the satellites?

That is a massive area worthy of its own study.. The visibility of n lumens of light at m kilometres, and its visibility through various mediums.. The absorption effect of the atmosphere on light in the visible spectrum, etc.. All these things should be clear as a fraud, based on intuition alone. With the naked eye, we could never see the light reflected from an object of the minuscule size alleged below, from a distance of 33,000 kilometres!

[Libero]

Reichstag,

I think your argument against satellite technology is strong as well and am well aware that even if that ship existed in person, it answers not a single question more than we already have. In my area, I believe there exists 4 mediums of obtaining television broadcast (HD Antenna,Cable, Satellite, IP Based) and other than the free option, for similar packages they are all curiously similarly priced and I am not familiar with any of them offering a more advantageous picture over the other. Additionally, the satellite radio package that I have costs the identical price to the IP based package of the same channels as well if purchased independently, so once again, where is the advantage other than the desired delivery method of the medium? For whatever reason, it appears that the content dictates the consumers price more so than the technology that delivers it, but who knows what decisions ultimately guide them to pursue their profit? That being said, aside from my opinion on the business risk I mentioned earlier for, at minimum, the entertainment satellites, I personally find it hard to believe that they can generate enough power from their solar panels to beam the information down to earth, but I am certainly not qualified technically to know if my opinion is right or if the technology is even feasible.

Where I can tell you where you are 100% correct is in the broadcast quality of the satellite radio channels... for many of them it is downright nasty. But it's many commercial free, static free channels of nastiness that can somewhat be compensated with a little bit of bass and treble tweaking . I would expect satellite radio sound to be much more amazing if the technology is so advanced.

[Mickey]

Reichstag,

I think your argument against satellite technology is strong as well and am well aware that even if that ship existed in person, it answers not a single question more than we already have. In my area, I believe there exists 4 mediums of obtaining television broadcast (HD Antenna,Cable, Satellite, IP Based) and other than the free option, for similar packages they are all curiously similarly priced and I am not familiar with any of them offering a more advantageous picture over the other. Additionally, the satellite radio package that I have costs the identical price to the IP based package of the same channels as well if purchased independently, so once again, where is the advantage other than the desired delivery method of the medium? For whatever reason, it appears that the content dictates the consumers price more so than the technology that delivers it, but who knows what decisions ultimately guide them to pursue their profit? That being said, aside from my opinion on the business risk I mentioned earlier for, at minimum, the entertainment satellites, I personally find it hard to believe that they can generate enough power from their solar panels to beam the information down to earth, but I am certainly not qualified technically to know if my opinion is right or if the technology is even feasible.

Where I can tell you where you are 100% correct is in the broadcast quality of the satellite radio channels... for many of them it is downright nasty. But it's many commercial free, static free channels of nastiness that can somewhat be compensated with a little bit of bass and treble tweaking . I would expect satellite radio sound to be much more amazing if the technology is so advanced.

While you have point there about the quality, one factor to consider is the compression method (H.264/VC1/MPEG4/MPEG2 etc) used by all these providers and their effects on the picture quality. They do tend to look similar, but if you have a DVB/DVB-S2 card and use software like ProgDVB/DVB Dream/TSReader/ etc, you can get a lot of details about the stream quality especially their bit rates and can spot the difference between them quantitatively. Now to a normal human eye, these may not mean much but differences do exist and a lot of people can discern the quality.

If you really want to see the difference though, get a Free-to-air card/STB to go with a fully motorized KU-band/C-Band satellite dish that can capture the entire Clarke Belt for your co-ordinates. Watch some of the unencrypted channels listed in http://www.lyngsat.com/america.html or follow the BackHaul forum http://rickcaylor.websitetoolbox.com/ where posters relay the exact Satellite info (Symbol rate/ polarity /frequency) to watch some live sports feeds before they are compressed and encrypted by the providers like DTV, Dishnet etc. These streams are very high bit rate (sometimes > 30mbits) and you can easily spot the difference compared to the highly compressed streams of the providers you mentioned. They are not even in the same league or ballpark and look stunning.

The providers also use different polarities from free-to-air sats, different encryption methods in different parts of the world, different equipment. I used to be a big time satellite nerd, although my curiosity was related more to the encryption methods of the providers and the actual processor programming of the cards used inside them. Worked on it for years in the early 2000s before a lot of real life/family/work etc caught up with me. Had a motorized KU band dish mounted on my house to catch a whole lot of FTA programming which also has benefits of best picture quality, no commercials not to mention catch sports programming not normally available through any providers.

I have stayed away from this topic mostly as I too am in nonho's shoes. There are some good discussions but color me unconvinced and I will just leave it at that.

[lux]

I have never subscribed to any of these dish TV services so I have no personal experience with them.

There are some things about them that I am skeptical about …

In looking at some web sites of these companies they seem to be saying that the dish must have a clear "line of sight" view in a certain direction and the presence of obstructions such as buildings, trees, etc will interfere with the signal and make installation problematic or impossible.

I would think this would be a major problem in large cities where there are lots of tall buildings.

Has anyone here had any experience with this situation? That is, they had a dish installed and then a building was erected nearby that blocked the dish and so their TV service stopped working?

And, what about communities that are located in valleys or near mountains that block the required “line of sight” view? Are there really no dishes installed in these areas?

Also, some of these dish web sites say that the dish only has to be pointed “toward the Southern sky” (Northern, I suppose, for down-unders). But “the Southern sky” is an awfully big area. It's half the entire sky, in fact. If the alleged location of the geostationary satellite is, say, behind an obstruction then how does the dish receive the signal even when pointed “at the Southern sky” in that case?

[reichstag fireman]

satellite radio channels...
a fully motorized KU-band/C-Band satellite dish
capture the entire Clarke Belt
the exact Satellite info
free-to-air sats

I used to be a big time satellite nerd

I will just leave it at that.

For a "satellite" nerd, we should expect scientific proof of their existence! And surely, those of an open-mind should not be using the same lingo as the alleged fraudster?!

Further, I don't understand your reasoning: you say it's possible to get high bit rate "feeds" for sporting events, therefore the "satellite" must exist?

High bitrate requires high bandwidth, but in the case of handheld satellite radios (and GPS receivers) that isn't practical. The instruments are miniaturised. They have very poor antennae. Tiny little patch aerials, just a couple of square inches in size. The antenna below from a handheld device is just 37mm x 37mm, the size of a postage stamp:


patch antenna from GPS device.
Just 37mm x 37mm.

These antennas are not directional, they have very low gain, so they pick up loads of noise.

The best way to recover the "satellite" signal from amongst that noise, is to use a very low transmission rate or symbol rate. And instead of a single frequency on which the whole bitstream is modulated, the SiriusXM system uses thousands of separate subcarriers.

Each subcarrier is transmitted on a slightly different frequency, separated by just a few Hertz from the next subcarrier. (Using lots of separate subcarriers can also overcome frequency-dependent noise.)

Each subcarrier conveys a "symbol" of only a few bits per second. The radio then reassembles all of those bits from each of the subcarriers into an audio bitstream. And a 39kbps bitrate can just about be squeezed out of the device.

A "satellite" really isn't needed to do any of that. Skywave will do just fine

EDIT: Just to add.. what frequency is the SiriusXM system supposedly receiving "satellite" signals? Which "satellite" in the "Clarke Belt" *snigger!* is it purportedly using? The manufacturers seem strangely silent over this.

Some PCB photos of the SiriusXM radios are found in the FCC database at the Office of Engineering and Technology - See: http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid/ and search under Grantee Code "rs2". Maybe it is possible to determine the nature of the beast from the integrated circuits that are used?

[whatsgoingon]

a

[Dmitry]

if an image depicts a rocket and I see no evidently absurd details there (like photographers near the jet engine at the launch), I suppose it is an image of a real rocket (not photoshopped image, not a dream, not a hallucination) until somebody proves the contrary. It is based on such experience:

1) I travelled several times by jet air planes.
2) I know people involved in aeroindustry.
3) I know that a lot of inventions claimed to be used in space industry are applied in aeroindustry -- so it's real.
4) I personally know people that did some black market math in 1990s: they took technical data about satellites to be launched (from Indians and other foreign customers) and calculated the probability of success for the launch. Customers really wanted to know if their satellite is too heavy or too long to be launched together with another one or two. My friends' service was cheaper than official Roscosmos contract. It's very probable that no taxes were paid. But the numbers was real. It's very strange if this work was part of some hoax. I know how fake projects are made: this was apparently not the case.

That's cool. Thanks for elaborating your stance. For the record, if an image depicts anything, and it doesn't have absurd details, I don't think I should "suppose" it's a genuine image of the thing depicted.

But maybe you do if this image depicts something looking very familiar to you. For example, if you look at the photo of a used cheap car (off the context of 9/11 or Oslo or something like this), I'm sure you shall not first search for photoshop traces. You'll just think: "it's a car". Because you've seen, touched and used lots of cars. For an alleged photo of an alien, this will be all other.

For me, a rocket is like a car, not an alien. For you -- maybe not. We have different life experiences.

I underline once again: this is just my impressions, I don't expect to convince anybody with it. Neither I feel myself obliged to prove anybody my intuitive confidence to some pictures.

In any case:
* "I think it's a fraud" is not an argument.
* "The smoke looks horrible to me" is not an argument.
* "No camera can be fixed" is not an argument.
* "No 20 000 km far emitted signal can be detected with a $5 chip" is not an argument.
* "No paedophile writer can predict any valuable technical invention" is not an argument.
* "You are (blind|numb|fool|clown|fraudster)" are not arguments.

Precise consistent calculations based on checkable observations are arguments.

[whatsgoingon]

a

[Dmitry]

I have not seen anything to prove exactly how 10GHz bandwidths are propagated terrestrially either.

Prove exactly, oh my...

Jimmie: [interupting] No, No, No, No, let me ask you a question. When you came pulling in here, did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said "Dead Nigger Storage"?
Jules: Jimmie, you know I ain't seen no...
Jimmie: [cutting him off again; getting angry] Did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said "Dead Nigger Storage"?
Jules: [pause] No. I didn't.
Jimmie: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?
Jules: Why?

You have not seen anything to prove exactly how 10GHz bandwidths are propagated terrestrially because... Maximum Usable Frequency (MUF) is thousand times less. Higher frequencies bypass the ionosphere and go to the space. See http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/qsl-perturbation6.htm or any other article on the MUF subject for reference.

[simonshack]

*
(brief 'off-topic' news flash - I apologize for interrupting this interesting technical debate with mere 'trivia'... )



FIRST EVER TRANSPACIFIC satellite TV broadcast (22/11/1963)

I just bumped into this delightful tidbit of 'information'...

"Relay 1 was the first satellite to broadcast television from the United States to Japan. The first broadcast during orbit 2677 (1963-11-22, 2027:42-2048 (GMT), or 1:27 pm Dallas time) was to be a prerecorded address from the president of the United States to the Japanese people, but was instead the announcement of the John F. Kennedy assassination."
(...)
"In the three days following the Kennedy assassination, Relay 1 handled a total of 11 spot broadcasts; eight to Europe and three to Japan."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay_1#Relay_1

The "RELAY 1" communication satellite


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... ite_firsts

I don't know about you - but if this extraordinary 'coincidental happenstance' doesn't stink to high heaven to you - you may have to check your nostrils!

And - on the JFK State Funeral wiki page we learn that...

"NBC transmitted coverage of the procession from the White House to the cathedral by satellite to twenty-three countries, including Japan and the Soviet Union, allowing hundreds of millions on both sides of the Iron Curtain in Europe to watch the funeral. However, satellite coverage ended when the coffin went into the cathedral.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_fune ... F._Kennedy

No mention whether this happened due to a fading signal or due to a momentary surge in inter-celestial respect.