I would like to have my own antenna in space with the ability to rearrange itself for different frequencies and configurations.

Maybe a small fleet of satellites to bean the signals to my place.

It would be great to experiment with small arrays that could reconfigure themselves, like change from a beam to a Quad etc.
.

Antennas could be fitted to drones

A fleet of drones could be extended around the whole planet.

They could all act as one antenna, but be very flexible with wide band receivers and antennas

They could all line up in the atmosphere to be coordinated at any height and place.

Tau.Neutrino said:

Antennas could be fitted to drones

A fleet of drones could be extended around the whole planet.

They could all act as one antenna, but be very flexible with wide band receivers and antennas

They could all line up in the atmosphere to be coordinated at any height and place.

sounds like a traffic control nightmare.

monkey skipper said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Antennas could be fitted to drones

A fleet of drones could be extended around the whole planet.

They could all act as one antenna, but be very flexible with wide band receivers and antennas

They could all line up in the atmosphere to be coordinated at any height and place.

sounds like a traffic control nightmare.

They would be well above the airline height limit.

Tau.Neutrino said:

monkey skipper said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Antennas could be fitted to drones

A fleet of drones could be extended around the whole planet.

They could all act as one antenna, but be very flexible with wide band receivers and antennas

They could all line up in the atmosphere to be coordinated at any height and place.

sounds like a traffic control nightmare.

They would be well above the airline height limit.

NASA’s latest balloon in space will reach 130,000 feet (24.6 miles or 40 kilometres).

Tau.Neutrino said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

monkey skipper said:

sounds like a traffic control nightmare.

They would be well above the airline height limit.

NASA’s latest balloon in space will reach 130,000 feet (24.6 miles or 40 kilometres).

Stratosphere not space

monkey skipper said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Antennas could be fitted to drones

A fleet of drones could be extended around the whole planet.

They could all act as one antenna, but be very flexible with wide band receivers and antennas

They could all line up in the atmosphere to be coordinated at any height and place.

sounds like a traffic control nightmare.

it could be a future radio astronomy project for a university

say a hundred drones or more acting as one big radio astronomy antenna.

A global array of antennas would be very handy.

Another radio astronomy project could be an global array of flexible receivers and flexible antennas out in space

These could be miniature fractal antennas, but thousands of them.

Tau.Neutrino said:

I would like to have my own antenna in space with the ability to rearrange itself for different frequencies and configurations.

Maybe a small fleet of satellites to bean the signals to my place.

It would be great to experiment with small arrays that could reconfigure themselves, like change from a beam to a Quad etc.
.

Have a chat with Elon.

Maybe he can lend you his, when he’s not using them.

The Rev Dodgson said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

I would like to have my own antenna in space with the ability to rearrange itself for different frequencies and configurations.

Maybe a small fleet of satellites to bean the signals to my place.

It would be great to experiment with small arrays that could reconfigure themselves, like change from a beam to a Quad etc.
.

Have a chat with Elon.

Maybe he can lend you his, when he’s not using them.

I had a look once at what a compact array of satellites would look like that would act as a giant antenna with a diameter comparable to that of Jupiter’s orbit.

I never finished the study, but I can dig up my preliminary results if you like.

mollwollfumble said:

I had a look once at what a compact array of satellites would look like that would act as a giant antenna with a diameter comparable to that of Jupiter’s orbit.

How does that work?

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I had a look once at what a compact array of satellites would look like that would act as a giant antenna with a diameter comparable to that of Jupiter’s orbit.

How does that work?

OK, I’ll look it up.

In a single word, interferometry. I started with existing 2-D layouts for compact arrays of radiotelescopes on Earth, then extended that out in 3-D into Earth orbiting satellites out to the orbit of the Moon. Then speculated on how that could be extended in Sun-orbiting satellites out to Jupiter’s orbit.

mollwollfumble said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

I had a look once at what a compact array of satellites would look like that would act as a giant antenna with a diameter comparable to that of Jupiter’s orbit.

How does that work?

OK, I’ll look it up.

In a single word, interferometry. I started with existing 2-D layouts for compact arrays of radiotelescopes on Earth, then extended that out in 3-D into Earth orbiting satellites out to the orbit of the Moon. Then speculated on how that could be extended in Sun-orbiting satellites out to Jupiter’s orbit.

I found my Excel file called “radio telescope Jupiter orbit.xlsx”

The column ‘n’ is the radio telescope number. There are exactly 100 in all, because I’ve slotted in an extra one at the Sun-Venus L4 point between numbers 91 and 92. Of these almost half are on the Earth’s surface and the rest in space.

The column ‘m or km’ is the distance from Earth’s surface point. These distances are set proportional to 2^(n/3) because that gives the ideal distance ratio for a 3-D compact array of telescope antennas.

The first 48 are on the Earth itself (distances from the central point in metres).
The next six are in Low Earth orbit (distances form here up in km).
Then geostationary and geosynchronous orbit.
Then eight in High Earth orbit.
One at Earth-Moon L1 Lagrangian point.
The next you have a choice of siting it either on the Moon or at the Earth-Moon L2 Lagrangian point.
The next 14 are in high Earth orbit beyond the Moon.
etc.
Antenna 93 is on Mars
Antenna 96 is on Ceres or in a similar orbit
Antenna 98 is out near Jupiter.

Details.

This week’s New Scientist has an article about black holes having an “infinite” (their word!) number of rings, and how they need a satellite at a stationary point, linked to an Earth telescope, so they can get the necessary resolution to study the first three.

Not sure if a Jupiter sized orbit would work in that application though.

The Rev Dodgson said:

This week’s New Scientist has an article about black holes having an “infinite” (their word!) number of rings, and how they need a satellite at a stationary point, linked to an Earth telescope, so they can get the necessary resolution to study the first three.

Not sure if a Jupiter sized orbit would work in that application though.

I’ve mentioned “Earth leading and trailing, Off plane and elliptical” orbits for antennas in the above. I’ve worked on “off plane and elliptical” orbits since. Here’s a plot of three such orbits. These are good orbits, the up down axis is the deviation from the plane of the Earth’s orbit. The left-right axis is leading and trailing the Earth. Here, 60 degrees corresponds to one Sun-Earth distance away from the Earth. ie. there are a long way away.