As the birds dropped out of the sky above the ground station, there might be some objections. What has to happen for long range, gigabit bandwidth, is a wide frequency range with little time on any particular frequency so that there is no concentrated effects on a single frequency where heating would start to occur. Frequency hopping over large spectrum is not a new thing, but it's something that could alleviate a number of issues with safety.
Gregg Wonderly W5GGW
On 2/10/2014 11:46 AM, Howie DeFelice wrote:
Just in case anyone was curious about the practicality of actually transmitting WiFi from a cubesat, I did a quick link budget. Based on typical 802.11 specs, the MDS of a receiver is about -90 dBm. The path loss at 2.4GHz between a ground station and a satellite overhead in a 600Km orbit is a little over 155 dB. Assuming a zero gain antenna on the typical WiFi client radio, the required EIRP from the cubesat is in the neighborhood of 4KW. I don't think we are quite there yet with current solar cell technology.... not to mention the difficulty keeping the PA cool :)
- Howie AB2S
Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb