Apollo Counter.

n7axw wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:
So even if you wanted one transmitter to take yo the ship and another missile (at least halving its transmission rate to each) I don't think a single transmitter, squeezed into a missile, could point both ways.

If you are talking about radio or some variation thereof, it is dependent on an antenna which in default mode is omnidirectional. If you are talking about lasers, my impression is those have to be aimed directly at a target. Gravatics function a bit more like radio.

Don

If you had a FTL transmitter in isolation I tend to agree that it would likely be somewhat omnidirectional; and we know the recon drones had to work on eliminating back-scatter grav signals (to be stealthier even
When transmitting FTL)

But we also know a missile's wedge cannot be altered once a set of drive nodes kick in. So you'd have a seperate transmitter somewhere on the missile body that would have to transmit out a gap in the wedge (otherwise the wedge's very strong FTL signal would swamp the weaker com signal. So again I'm assuming that it has a rear mounted transmitter that beams through aft opening of the wedge.

But we certainly have no relevant text-ev I can think of; so I could certainly be wrong about this.

Jonathan_S wrote:[If you had a FTL transmitter in isolation I tend to agree that it would likely be somewhat omnidirectional; and we know the recon drones had to work on eliminating back-scatter grav signals (to be stealthier even
When transmitting FTL)

Uh Omni = same in all directions.

Radio antennas are only omni in a single plane if it is a vertical antenna and not a dipole etc. If you want range and fidelity you certainly do not use an omnidirectional antenna. The only time ANYONE uses an omnidirectional antenna is when you want area coverage. No one is ever going to put an omnidirectional antenna on an RD in any form.

By definition you cannot have backscatter giving away your position if it is omnidirectional! They would already have the SIGNAL if that were the case!

FTL signal from RD's is Not omnidirectional. It certainly is directional. Not laser directional, but at minimum at least dipole directional or dish(reflector).

--snipping--

wastedfly wrote:Uh Omni = same in all directions.

Radio antennas are only omni in a single plane if it is a vertical antenna and not a dipole etc. If you want range and fidelity you certainly do not use an omnidirectional antenna. The only time ANYONE uses an omnidirectional antenna is when you want area coverage. No one is ever going to put an omnidirectional antenna on an RD in any form.

By definition you cannot have backscatter giving away your position if it is omnidirectional! They would already have the SIGNAL if that were the case!

FTL signal from RD's is Not omnidirectional. It certainly is directional. Not laser directional, but at minimum at least dipole directional or dish(reflector).

That plus the encoding level must be rather intense. "Back in the day" phone lines did good to transmit at 14.4k BITS, and now carry DSL and faster on the same copper wire, analagous to how in the Honorverse early FTL was basically morse code and now they've got Apollo and Hermes buoys.

In terms of "blocking" Apollo with some saturation style grav pulses, I was thinking about "jamming" and went back reading wise as far as the USAF EF-111 Raven (the SparkVark), which still had a mode of operation that allowed verbal transmissions on the battlefield. Given that the ACM missile is surrounded by and hidden by high energy wedges (the remaining Mark 23's), it's likely that ONLY the right, highly encoded setting of FTL signals can be sent and received, as nothing else gets through.

wastedfly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:[If you had a FTL transmitter in isolation I tend to agree that it would likely be somewhat omnidirectional; and we know the recon drones had to work on eliminating back-scatter grav signals (to be stealthier even
When transmitting FTL)

Uh Omni = same in all directions.

Radio antennas are only omni in a single plane if it is a vertical antenna and not a dipole etc. If you want range and fidelity you certainly do not use an omnidirectional antenna. The only time ANYONE uses an omnidirectional antenna is when you want area coverage. No one is ever going to put an omnidirectional antenna on an RD in any form.

By definition you cannot have backscatter giving away your position if it is omnidirectional! They would already have the SIGNAL if that were the case!

FTL signal from RD's is Not omnidirectional. It certainly is directional. Not laser directional, but at minimum at least dipole directional or dish(reflector).

Guess I didn't spell out my thought process clearly enough. I was mentioning the issues with back scatter as an example that even when you wanted directional FTL transmissions it was hard to do and still not perfect.
That might indicate that if you don't take special steps to attempt to enforce directionality of the grav pulses that they'd be fairly omnidirectional (likely not perfectly so; but still not very directional by default)

Jonathan_S wrote:[If you had a FTL transmitter in isolation I tend to agree that it would likely be somewhat omnidirectional; and we know the recon drones had to work on eliminating back-scatter grav signals (to be stealthier even
When transmitting FTL)

wastedfly wrote:
Uh Omni = same in all directions.

Radio antennas are only omni in a single plane if it is a vertical antenna and not a dipole etc. If you want range and fidelity you certainly do not use an omnidirectional antenna. The only time ANYONE uses an omnidirectional antenna is when you want area coverage. No one is ever going to put an omnidirectional antenna on an RD in any form.

By definition you cannot have backscatter giving away your position if it is omnidirectional! They would already have the SIGNAL if that were the case!

FTL signal from RD's is Not omnidirectional. It certainly is directional. Not laser directional, but at minimum at least dipole directional or dish(reflector).

Guess I didn't spell out my thought process clearly enough. I was mentioning the issues with back scatter as an example that even when you wanted directional FTL transmissions it was hard to do and still not perfect.
That might indicate that if you don't take special steps to attempt to enforce directionality of the grav pulses that they'd be fairly omnidirectional (likely not perfectly so; but still not very directional by default)[/quote][quote="Jonathan_S"]
The original idea for the FTL comms came from Honor flickering her wedge as a signal to the Andermani ship working in conjunction with her (With One Stone). Those signals appeared to be omni directional, and I suspect that the early FTL drones were as well, as there is some textev that the Peeps were detecting odd ball grav pulses, but couldn't figure out what they were. It would appear that there have been improvements in the technology since those early days.

fallsfromtrees wrote:The original idea for the FTL comms came from Honor flickering her wedge as a signal to the Andermani ship working in conjunction with her (With One Stone). Those signals appeared to be omni directional, and I suspect that the early FTL drones were as well, as there is some textev that the Peeps were detecting odd ball grav pulses, but couldn't figure out what they were. It would appear that there have been improvements in the technology since those early days.

No, the early FTL drones were not omnidirectional. In HoTQ--the very first time we saw FTL drones--the Thunder of God intermittently detected grav pulses as they passed through the beam of one of the drones further out in the system. FTL comm signals have been directional ever since they were deployed.

wastedfly wrote:

Jonathan_S wrote:[If you had a FTL transmitter in isolation I tend to agree that it would likely be somewhat omnidirectional; and we know the recon drones had to work on eliminating back-scatter grav signals (to be stealthier even
When transmitting FTL)

Uh Omni = same in all directions.

Radio antennas are only omni in a single plane if it is a vertical antenna and not a dipole etc. If you want range and fidelity you certainly do not use an omnidirectional antenna. The only time ANYONE uses an omnidirectional antenna is when you want area coverage. No one is ever going to put an omnidirectional antenna on an RD in any form.

By definition you cannot have backscatter giving away your position if it is omnidirectional! They would already have the SIGNAL if that were the case!

FTL signal from RD's is Not omnidirectional. It certainly is directional. Not laser directional, but at minimum at least dipole directional or dish(reflector).

Two things here... A dipole in space is indeed omni directional. However it is quite rare that you have that condition so that is largely theoretical. More normally dipoles are configured as inverted vs in which directivity is broadside to the antenna in both directions with a very high angle of radiation which tend to make them cloud burners.

Secondly there is really no such thing as completely directional, at least with yagi or quad antennas. I have no experience with dish antennas so I cannot comment about that. Directivity is measured in foward gain in db over the theoretical dipole. 6 db, 8 db or whatever. Signal rejection is also measured in db 30 db, etc. The crucial point here is that none of this is absolute. Even if my beam is pointed away from you, the closer you are the chances are you are going to hear something off the back of my beam and I will be able to hear you. The further out you go, the weaker the signal until it disappears.

In the honorverse, given lack of reason to believe to the contrary, I visualize the gravatic stuff working about the same way. They talk about backscatter which implies signal from drones "leaking" away from assigned path but too weak to localize. If I were to send out a drone, I would want the receiving antenna to be omnidirectional, but the transmitting antenna to be as directional as possible pointed at me. How the mechanics of this would work, I'm not sure. I am also not sure of the backscatter effect, that that is how it make sense to me.

Some of you guys are professionals at this sort of thing. I'm just an "amateur. so if you feel a need to refine and clean up my info, feel free.

Don