Ok I've seen the arguments over signal range and what not. I've read entries in Unwired for differing levels of service to use satellites. What I was wondering is when you buy the offered Sat Uplink for your comm are you getting an antenna to use Geo Sats or a dish to use LEO Sats? Or both or somthing else? Unwired is saying your have to have dish to use LEO but I know there are sat phones now that just use a more powerful antenna, are these Geo Sat phones? Guess part of my problem is little understanding of current use of Sat phones although I know there getting more compact every year.

As a Sub question: What about hacking a Sat for when you want to use one without a MSP?

The only time I've gotten to use a sat phone is was about the size of a GPS unit and it had an antenna. We had "traditional" military satcom as well (a little pop up "dish" thing...) but frankly the satphone was more reliable (if not as secure, or so I'm told)

Done alittle research and from what I can tell (Most of what I've read hasn't been real clear) you don't need a dish for either leo or geo sat phones. I certainly could be wrong here, what read so far is wiki and individual corporate info. Maybe the dish is needed for high speed "data" transmission?

Ignoring the real world, the way I read that passage in Unwired is that you have to have dish for GEO and don't need one for LEO. And lacking a distinction in the satlink upgrade, I assume you get a dish so you can do both. I note that there is a satellite link vehicle mod in Arsenal that explicitly states you get a dish.

If you don't mind me adding another question to the mix, do we assume that the satellite link lets you transmit back up to the satellite? There's nothing to suggest otherwise in the book that I can see, but in real life a satellite internet connection is typically used only for receiving information and transmitting is still done over a normal phone line. (AFAIK).

this reply to your post is coming straight from my hands, to the keyboard, out through my router, into a modem, and up through a satellite dish to DF (well i skipped a few steps in between but whatever). so no, not quite.

Pg. 51 Unwired says you need a tracker dish for leo sats to "follow" them not for Geo sats. Still trying to find a good source of info for RL data transfers on Sat phones, only thing found so far is sending email and seems possible with simply an antenna for either satellite.

Okay. Seems to be my lucky week. At the rate I'm getting corrected on things, I'll know everything there is to know by Saturday. I just recalled that there were connection packages available in the UK where you got your fast download rate from a satellite and sent the outgoing requests (and uploads) over a phone line. Obviously this is now out of date.

@Prime Mover: Yep, you're right, I had them the wrong way around. You need a dish for LEO but not (by implication) for GEO. So that's what I'll go for and I'll stick with you getting a little dish with the upgrade for use if the character wants to use LEO, though their main usage seems to be for connecting in areas without wireless. Pretty handy, I would say.

Now onto another thought, why there really shouldn't be any feral or dead zones. Sat Links really aren't too expensive and having one active can effectively act as a retrans unit if keeping with the mesh network theory of every commlink in assisting in data transfers. So just one Sat Comm and enough random links in range keeps you connected if you wanted to create an on the fly or black market msp service. Yes/NO?

edit:@ knasser sorry I hate it myself, you eat breath and sleep SR in your spare time, read and reread a ton of material from 20 yrs and you miss one reference from one page and theres someone there looking it up to correct you....I feel your pain. Just happen to have book with me due to topic hehe.

not a horrible idea, but consider that there may be feral/dead zones because people want them that way? *cue ominous music* concurrently, is there like an FCC 2070 that says what people are allowed to operate devices on certain bandwidths and for what purposes? almost seems like CCMA jurisdiction... i think i read something about this, maybe at the end of System Failure?...or i just made it up

Ah, I also happened to have the book right here with me at the time (I bought the PDFs so they're always to hand). I have no excuse. I don't mind the correction. I'd just thought further away -> need dish.

On the subject of dead zones, it's a good point. It really depends what flavour you want to achieve. For example much of the Redmond barrens has only occasional wireless matrix. It's not explained where the occasional matrix access comes from though, and maybe the occasional access is exactly what you propose - someone setting up a sat-link for a while. But this is an area where there mostly isn't even any power and most residents wont want to be spending 25¥ every month just to share a connection with their neighbours. It would also stand out like a sore thumb in the devastation that is the barrens, so you might be making yourself a target of any particular powers that be. You can come up with fluff reasons why other dead zones might exist. But from a game point of view, it makes it difficult to enforce a dead zone on players, unless it's some underground place. Anywhere above ground, they'll cheerfully hook up to a GEO and have their access. Well, almost anywhere. That might be an issue if a GM wants to enforce a particular scenario.

the "sometimes" get a signal thing can be that you are just close enough to the edge of the barrens that happen to get some signal bleed over. Certain weather conditions might allow the signal to go father. Or someone with a "pringles can" on an antenna pointing into the barrens, or whatever antenna hacks they might have in 62 years. Or as you said, somone with a sat link, puts up a little wireless network around them. It could be many things.

just my 0.02 worth of opinion...

All good suggestions. A recent session featured the troll samurai dangling out of the window of the team's Xth floor Redmond Barrens apartment window holding an aerial, trying to get a decent reception to watch wrestling on. I think I'll suggest a satelite link for the group next time.