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Bit of trivia for a Sunday:

Ever wonder where ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡°old???¡é?¡é???????? protocols go when they are worn out ?.........the moon apparently !!
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20090012003_2009011332.pdf

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/37962-sci-trek-lunar-colony-video.htm


If the proposed lunar colonies ever get going [ necessary if the proposed Mars missions are to work ] there are a few interesting things from the RF point of view:

1. Towers have been proposed to allow communications over long distances [ from the main building complexes to outlying areas [ mining areas etc ]. When the link budget is done, ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡°moon bulge???¡é?¡é???????? and not earth bulge will need to be taken into consideration. Due to the fact that the moon has a smaller physical diameter than the earth, the horizon ???¡é?¡é?????¡­?¡°appears closer???¡é?¡é????????. When I was doing communications support work for the Shuttle missions, the NASA guys I worked with used link budgets that would be familiar to any wireless folks, with some special features to account for spacecraft movement etc.

2. No atmosphere, so no refraction effects [ k-factor etc ].

3. No tall objects on moon and no metal [ except for a few old lunar rovers from the Apollo missions and the actual colony buildings ] or reflecting water surfaces.This is good in terms of multipath. It will be interesting to see what effects the lunar surface has on radio waves in terms of absorption and reflection. Surface is powdery.

4. HF radio cannot be used as it relies on ionospheric refraction for it???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡és propagation mechanism.

5. Cannot use existing earth orbiting satellites due to direction of antenna pointing [ towards earth ].

I???¡é?¡é?????¡é???¡éd imagine the per diem and travel expenses for fault callouts from Earth would be pretty good???¡é?¡é???????|???¡é?¡é???????|???¡é?¡é???????|???¡é?¡é???????|
Maybe the "Pimp My Wi-Fi Tour" could do a stop.....

Dave

We had considered going to the moon as part of the road show, but I don't like to fly and my RV hasn't been updated with the "Spaceballs" option as of yet. :)

GT