Speculation for Nahrmahn' Little Brainstorm?

EdThomas wrote:Remember that I was a geography major but what about sound-powered phones.My peek at the Wiki article said they can be made to work up to 30 km which would be more than adequate for observer to battery comms. The hard part would be figuring out how to get the thing "invented" without going too far into the electricity swamp.

and of course they would be helpful aboard naval vessels.

From Wikipedia:

Operation

The microphone transducer converts sound pressure from a user's voice into a minute electric current, ...

No need to read further, the Proscription against electricity applies.

EdThomas wrote:Remember that I was a geography major but what about sound-powered phones.My peek at the Wiki article said they can be made to work up to 30 km which would be more than adequate for observer to battery comms. The hard part would be figuring out how to get the thing "invented" without going too far into the electricity swamp.

and of course they would be helpful aboard naval vessels.

They are helpful aboard USN vessels, I understand.

Unfortunately, the copper wires between the phone units kind of give the drawback away. I don't think even Paityr can wave his hands fast enough to talk them out of being proscribed. They depend on Piezo-electric crystals and I don't see how you can hide their fundamentally contraband nature. Nor get anyone outside the Inner Circle up on them enough to do installation or field maintenance without giving the game away.

I'm pretty sure they have been mentioned before.

People of earth really have short memories, I know, but remember when all laptops and early electronics had infra-red ports - there are ways of generating chemical pump lazers and a digital semaphore (of sorts) system with a mechanical out put and burn in receiver would only be limited to line of sight restrictions but massively increase communication speeds and information density passing systems and with some ingenuity could be 100% mechanical and light based making it proscriptions friendly......

Thendisnia wrote: limited to line of sight restrictions

Would this sort of system work if there was moisture in the air? Rain, snow, fog.

Probably depending on the wave length used. Couple of buddies of mine got two computers to connect over a line of sight of about 5 km between the balconies of their respective houses way back in junior high.

The wire only gives things away to people who know about electricity. Otherwise, it is the childhood two tin cans and string, with copper replacing the string, and nothigng that vaguely resembles lightning.

Randomiser wrote:

EdThomas wrote:Remember that I was a geography major but what about sound-powered phones.My peek at the Wiki article said they can be made to work up to 30 km which would be more than adequate for observer to battery comms. The hard part would be figuring out how to get the thing "invented" without going too far into the electricity swamp.

and of course they would be helpful aboard naval vessels.

They are helpful aboard USN vessels, I understand.

Unfortunately, the copper wires between the phone units kind of give the drawback away. I don't think even Paityr can wave his hands fast enough to talk them out of being proscribed. They depend on Piezo-electric crystals and I don't see how you can hide their fundamentally contraband nature. Nor get anyone outside the Inner Circle up on them enough to do installation or field maintenance without giving the game away.

I'm pretty sure they have been mentioned before.

phillies wrote:The wire only gives things away to people who know about electricity. Otherwise, it is the childhood two tin cans and string, with copper replacing the string, and nothigng that vaguely resembles lightning.

That presumes the OBS and Temple don't have anything that can detect RF emissions.

Weird Harold wrote:

phillies wrote:The wire only gives things away to people who know about electricity. Otherwise, it is the childhood two tin cans and string, with copper replacing the string, and nothigng that vaguely resembles lightning.

That presumes the OBS and Temple don't have anything that can detect RF emissions.

Except that sound powered phones produce an 'Audio frequency' signal (20hz to 20khz), not a radio frequency signal.

Xsquid wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:That presumes the OBS and Temple don't have anything that can detect RF emissions.

Except that sound powered phones produce an 'Audio frequency' signal (20hz to 20khz), not a radio frequency signal.

It's still electro-magnetic radiation, and still detectable by TF Tech.

1. Poking around with forum searches, the FAQs and Weber's Pearls has not turned up the specific language of the Proscriptions. Is this language available or are we working on the references in the books about what electricity is?

2. Magnetism. We know Safehold has compasses. (too big an assumption?) But we don't know how much is known about magnetic force. What if one of Sandra's associates were to start playing around with magnets and discovered "magnetical" energy? This has nothing to do with the archangels, electric eels or lightning so how would it be considered as a violation of the mysterious proscriptions?