Radio Free Luna
Aug. 23rd, 2022 05:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrRadio Free Luna is a concept I've seen in several stories and at least one filk song.
Basically, a radio station broadcasting from the moon and doing programming that some places on Earth might not approve of. For example at the moment, actual reporting on the war in the Ukraine beamed at Russia.
Simple enough concept. The biggie being having folks on the moon long term who aren't all that dependent on Earth and it not being worth the effort to stop them.
But I'm wondering about the practicalities. Power is easy enough large solar arrays and lots of storage for he night.
Antennas are another matter. Anybody have suggestions? Would beam antennas on nearside/farside boundaries be better? Or would some sort of centrally located antenna?
I'm thinking short wave or maybe even AM or FM bands. Just not sure what would be the best combo for both reaching more radios and best penetrating the ionisphere.
At least you can build *big* on Luna. Full wave dipoles anyone? :-)
Basically, a radio station broadcasting from the moon and doing programming that some places on Earth might not approve of. For example at the moment, actual reporting on the war in the Ukraine beamed at Russia.
Simple enough concept. The biggie being having folks on the moon long term who aren't all that dependent on Earth and it not being worth the effort to stop them.
But I'm wondering about the practicalities. Power is easy enough large solar arrays and lots of storage for he night.
Antennas are another matter. Anybody have suggestions? Would beam antennas on nearside/farside boundaries be better? Or would some sort of centrally located antenna?
I'm thinking short wave or maybe even AM or FM bands. Just not sure what would be the best combo for both reaching more radios and best penetrating the ionisphere.
At least you can build *big* on Luna. Full wave dipoles anyone? :-)
no subject
Date: 2022-08-23 05:32 pm (UTC)You don't need people on the Moon... what you'd need is a repeater station, and a very tight beam uplink from someplace out in international waters, or rather several somewheres. Or if you really don't want people knowing where you're transmitting from, then use a laser uplink to the Lunar transmitter array from some orbital satellites and tight beam microwave link from multiple ground stations. It wouldn't look unusual for a encrypted uplink to a satellite, and the laser relay link wouldn't even be visible from Earth.
Come to think of it... you wouldn't even need that big of a satellite, a 20x20x30 cube-sat would do it as the orbital relay. How you'd get the radio transmitter array on the moon I'm not sure, but given that Space-X is planning on doing ride-shares on their moon shots for private firms, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility.
no subject
Date: 2022-08-23 09:52 pm (UTC)Hmmm. I know treaties say that Luna can't be claimed by a nation. I wonder what they say about claiming *part* of it? Much less a lunar base or colony declaring itself an independent state?
Then again, if it's an alternate timeline, they may have been there *before* the treaty. :-)
An "educational" channel giving info about various parts of the moon might be popular. Especially if there's an observatory at Farside base.
A large mirror array would be fairly easy to build (assuming you have the people and tech to build things on the moon in the first place). And a multi kilometer radio dish in a crater ought to be doable as well.