[BC] Satellite sensitivity...

[Mark Humphrey]

The Search and Rescue receivers ride piggyback on weather satellites in a
relatively low (528 mile) orbit.  Here's NOAA's website that explains the
system:

http://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/

With a true line-of-sight path and narrowband channel, it's surprising how
little power is needed to communicate over several hundred miles.  The first
Oscar satellite carried a transmitter making only 140 mW in the 2 meter
band:

http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/Hamsats/Hamsats1960s.html

Mark



On 2/16/06, WFIFeng at aol.com <WFIFeng at aol.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> So then how do these sats receive the 121.5 Mhz signals coming from
> milliwatt
> transmitters with whip antennas? That is pretty amazing, IMHO.
>