Hey Folks,

I'm considering the following:

A satellite link that would fit into a cyberarm. I have arbitrarily assigned it a capacity rating of 4.

My reasoning being that even today, satellite phones are small and compact. Satellite radios in use by the military are similarily so. Satellite antennae for GPS and/satellite radios (I understand they're recieve only) are small flat chip-style dishes.

With 70 years for development and given the pervasiveness of satellites and the serious demand for being able to stay in contact no with the Matrix no matter what, no matter when, no matter where, does it give anyone a conniption fit to think a satellite link could be installed in a cyberarm?

I'd appreciate any opinions or feedback on this.

Regards,


Pax

there is no real size described for the Satellite Link, nor does it state that you need to stay immobile to use it. Therefore, put a SatLink in your pocket and continue about your day.

Or: Get an MCT Flyspy with a Satellite Communications array, and hardwire him to your comm (so you can use his signal). It's a little expensive, but really small.

The entry mentions a portable dish, but by and large I wouldn't worry. You might need that to catch a weak signal if your GM wants to make things tricky for you. Keep it in your pack and you should be fine to set it up if necessary.

It's reasonable to think that in 60+ years we will have come up with something better than we use today. Looking back in my lifetime alone I'm shocked by the advances in satellite tech.

The satellite link costs $500 and grants a relay signal of 8. Packing signal 6 into a commlink costs $3,000. It may be compact, but I'm thinking a dongle that you would hang on your belt, not something to slip into a breast pocket. The "portable satellite dish" would be a separate unit that allows you to connect to geosynchronous satellites on the go, perhaps the size of a present-day laptop. Low-Earth-Orbit satellites can be reached by the omnidirectional signal rating, so the dish isn't necessary if you're anywhere near civilization (and you don't want the trace-proof connection).

Just in case you haven't heard, we have satellite links now.

I would use the Satellite link in Arsenal on vehicle mods for slot count. Which is 1 for obvious and 2 slots (or Capacity) for hidden.

4 seems steep, since you can put a sate link in a mirco drone if you really want to.

Or it could be a hidden port to plug the "dongle" into... though with wireless tech,that's not necessarily required. Other thing is that a directional antenna is stealtiher if you're trying to communicate while badguys are looking for you locally (signal goes mostly straight up, not out). The comment about omnidirectional signal for LEO satellites vs the dish for GEO is pretty well spot on. And the dish can be a) collapsible and b) surprisingly damned small. I know most of you are familiar with the DBS Satellite technology offered by companies like Dish Network and DirecTV in the USA. The standard single-satellite dish is 18" / 46cm in diameter, dual satellite is 22" / 56cm and the three satellite dish goes from nearly circular to a fairly large oval. What you may not be aware of, however, is that the MINIMUM size of the reflector/collector COULD HAVE BEEN as small as 8" / 20cm back in 1994 with then current (NOT state-of-the-art) technology. More interestingly, you could actually use an 8" pie tin in a pinch, or a medium pizza box with tinfoil on the front. Don't ask, because I'm not going to tell you, but it WILL work. The reason the Dish(es) didn't go with that option is because it's extremely hard to AIM. Your acquisition window on an 18" / 46cm dish is something like 10" / 25 cm wide in terms of LNBF travel. You don't get much in the way of signal at the outer edges, by definition, but it's enough to help you steer in knowing you're close. The 8" pie tin, on the other hand, had an acquisition window of less than an inch, so you REALLY needed to know what you were doing and where you were looking in the sky. Jump foward to 2001, and we have the launch of omnidirectional receivers for GEO broadcasts, though only the bandwidth necessary for CD qualiy audio instead of ATSC HD video. I see no reason RECEIVERS couldn't be already factored into something the size of a comlink by 2070. But to be a communications channel, that requires a TRANSMITTER to close the communications loop. In 2000, StarBand (part of DishNetwork) had a transmitter that measured about 12" / 30.5cm in length and 6" / 15cm square in cross section, weighing several pounds, again using civilian current technology. The military has the things down... well, lots smaller, but for the kind of data transfer rates needed for Sim/VR Matrix access, they still use a substantial dish. It's this transmitter that is going to be the fundamental limiting factor in miniturization of a 2-way satellite link. A transmitter powerful enough to hit a LEO (as low as 100 miles / 160 kilometers) satellite constelation with an omnidirectional signal could be tucked into a comlink as an option with a capacity of 1, sharing most of the standard antenna's hardware (see also: Iridium Satellite Phones in real life), but getting up to a GEO bird? I'm not sure what may come about in miniturization, and it would of course depend on the sensitivity of the bird in GEO, but I don't think it would be trivial like hitting the LEO birds. Sorry for the (typical for me) technical infodump, but I figured SOMEBODY might actually find it useful.

I think I've read somewhere (Unwired?) in the rules that you use a small antenna for getting in contact with geostationary communication satellites but you need a small movable dish for tracking a non-stationary satellite.

Going off that, you could most likely use a dish with an expert system to get a very small dish perfectly dialed in. All it needs is good GPS and a map of the sky and it should be able to point and maintain a dish with inhuman accuracy. Nearly had to bring this up with a GM who was not familiar with the new rules that don't mention the chicken wire and glue method of dish creation like 3rd edition. If I can by an underbarrel tripod mount that can fire my sniper rifle while I have tea, why wouldn't they have a sat dish that does this at a negligible cost. It doesn't need to be nearly as clever, just accurate with pre-programmed data.

I think you have that backwards. LEO satellites would be reachable without the tracking dish, and if Unwired said otherwise (which is possible) then somebody is really weak on their tech IRL. The issue is range: 100 miles / 160 km LEO vs 22,300 miles / 36,000 km for GEO. (That long range is the reason for the INItitative penalty in the Matrix - even at the speed of light, that's a noticable round trip up, down, then back up and back down to you - call it 290ms added latency.) Yes, those LEO satellites zip around, but I suspect by 2070 you could come up with an omnidirectional transmitter able to hit them.


I like the idea, and I agree it's entirely doable. After all, the big hump on the top of the Global Hawk is actually an auto-tracking satellite dish that homes on a GEO defense bird. Same is true for naval vessels which have to cope with sea movement when broadcasting.

As to chicken wire, if somebody is concerned about jamming affecting your uplink, you can actually construct a cage of aluminum window screening around the front of your dish if you ground the mesh itself. The actual angle of arrival to the dish is higher than horizontal, so your screen would stop anything arriving from ground level to slight elevations. That will take care of the knucklehead rigger with a jammer in her van.

I am so glad the rules don't get that specific. I was pretty lost reading over the rules in Rigger 3 and was delighted to find that it was all very simple in SR4. Even Unwired didn't throw too much complication into the mix. Makes it that much easier for a GM with a group of specialists from their respective fields.

The rules for satellite links, IN USE are very simple and clear. We're mostly tossing around ideas as to the fluff details that would surround them and somebody brought up the (to me) pretty wiz idea of putting the uplink as an option in a cyberlimb. The rules make speciffic diferentiation - use wise - between LEO and GEO satellite usage in the Matrix, so it's reasonable that somebody might not care about one or the other.

I'm just grateful that the rules are more table friendly. The fluff is fun to discuss on DS, but when I'm out in the NAN and the GM says I need to aim a sat dish and starts looking for rules... No Fun.

Back on topic an integrated satellite seems like a perfectly reasonable idea. If you wanted to spend four points of capacity on it I'd rule you had a little arm that came out and auto targeted a tiny dish for you if necessary. As stated above you most likely only need 1 or 2.

I always imagines the Sat Uplink as a little black box with an opening on the top that a fold away dish came out of. Motorised so it would automatically track any LEO Sats across the sky (How long is a LOE Orbit Sat actually in LOS? I cannot imagine it is that long, they are moving quite fast no?)

Unwired quotes an actual overhead time, but I think it's bogus (as in way too high). That's why for the LEO stuff, I say just simplify and say it's an omnidirectional uplink... unless you're particularly concerned about security. But if you were really that paranoid, you'd be bouncing off a GEO, neh?