"Woody" wrote in news:i4rIg.901$N84.191@trnddc08:

So did your guy die or not?

Which one? You win some, you lose some. In more than twenty years there
were lots. You see until 1995 CW was still being used for serious ship-to-
shore comms. SSB is OK for phone calls but if you want written copy, you
need something that works. And, though we tried it with some fairly good
equipment, RTTY just didn't cut it. What did the job was INMARSAT.
Satellite comms can take place on VHF, UHF and SHF bands that don't
restrict bandwidth. And they can do that because the antenna is finally
high enough to make a real difference.

And that's why I'm watching TV from a 12ghz satellite signal right now.
Putting the antenna that high makes all modes pretty much equal as far as
signal-to-noise goes.

Of course, if a big solar flare takes out a whole bunch of sats, we're
gonna have a comm squeeze.


--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667