HYPE: RYP in FP

[RYP]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... _messenger

9000 comments on Reddit, 600+ Facebook likes and god knows how many Tweets. WTF? In case you ask..the call the Chechen commander made for me was about french journo Brice Fleutieux who had been kidnapped ostensibly by Chechen rebels but they hadn't heard of his entry.

[nowonmai]

Good to see Ms Colvin is still selling stories. Best Of Album out next week.

[thewalrus]

RYP, time to join the reddit world... It's eating every other form of collaborative forum and link sharing upvote/downvote type site.

The main problem with satellite phones is that they were not designed to be stealthy RF-wise. When in use they're a fairly powerful localized transmitter on a fixed set of bands that are easy to identify on a spectrum analyzer looking at the 1350-1750MHz band. In addition the antennas on an Iridium 9555 or similar are not very directional. For those who've used one, you're familiar with how the users manual shows you how to bend the antenna's angle "up" if you hold it to your left ear. The antenna on the end of the stick is not properly directional with a very narrow beam width, it's actually covering 30 to 50 degrees of sky if you aim it "up". This is necessary because it's a constellation of low earth orbit satellites, the several satellites that might be above you at a given time are in constant motion during the course of a 5 minute phone call.

I do think it would be much harder to locate an Inmarsat iSatphone (from the ground) if it was paired with a highly directional dish shaped L-band antenna. One, because you can aim an iSatphone at a fixed point in space (it communicates with a single geostationary orbit satellite above your hemisphere, wherever you are, and is not seen as moving from a point of view on the ground). This would require some soldering and surgery to the iSatphone to remove the bar shaped antenna and wire it up to a 1 foot diameter parabolic reflector dish on a mount with an L-band feed. But this method would result in a great deal less spurious radiation spewed off to the side of your transmitter.

Any competent Ham radio person that does L-band moon bounce with dishes could do this, but finding a 1' dish that's the right size/shape and portable is another question.

[Farmdog]

Dear Wally,

You are crazy as a one eyed woodpecker in a lumber yard. You can cheat and put an irridium puck antenna inside of a local FTA dish in an emergency to boost the signal. No need to hide it, the damn things are everywhere.

[thewalrus]

The point is not to boost the signal. The signal from the built-in antenna or puck antenna is already sufficient for the link budget and data rate. Putting an Iridium puck antenna in a steel salad bowl is not a good idea due to multipath reflection. The idea is to prevent your L-band Tx from spewing all over the place in the azimuth on the ground relative to your position.

here's a typical L-band feed, but this is for use on much larger dishes.

http://www.astrosurf.com/luxorion/Radio ... r-noaa.jpg

[RYP]

it's a clash of cultures.

Sat phones by their technical nature are designed to be "found'.

Journalists by their cultural nature think they are not targets but yet spend an inordinate amount of time tell people where they are

Telling people where you are sleeping and slagging off the angry people who are firing artillery at your armed friends just really doens't make a whole lot of sense.

[Mikethehack]

it's a clash of cultures.

Sat phones by their technical nature are designed to be "found'.

Journalists by their cultural nature think they are not targets but yet spend an inordinate amount of time tell people where they are

Telling people where you are sleeping and slagging off the angry people who are firing artillery at your armed friends just really doens't make a whole lot of sense.

There was a time when last week's news was good enough this week. Then the carrier pigeons all got laid off and were replaced with something electronic. Shortly after that it had to be today's news today. I blame the bloody telephone. Then some cunt invented the satellite and things got worse. Then it became live breaking news with Peter Arnett (a man who knew a thing or two about covering wars). Now, thanks to the fucking Internet, mobile phones and Twitter, people want the news before it has happened.

[JohnnyFishfinger]

just read it. good shit RYP.

[RYP]

Getting a lot of play. I suppose age and wisdom are worth a quick 15 minutes every few months. Its kinda pathetic to be famous for still being alive.

[gnaruki]

Reddit has some cool stuff going on. The karma system is stupid, the front page is rarely worthwhile these days, it's all about the subreddits. Whomever is on the engineer team has done a good job keeping up with the increased usage over the years.