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HairyManBack84 t1_iyaybcj wrote

Reply to comment by KonigVonMurmeltiere in Astronomers Worldwide Troubled by New 'Cell Phone Towers in Space' by IslandChillin

Man, you don’t obviously know how any modern connections work. It won’t randomly blast areas. It’s all beamforming… If it sent signals everywhere it wouldn’t work at all.

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KonigVonMurmeltiere t1_iyba1im wrote

Directional antennas still produce sidelobes. They aren’t laser precise. Keep in mind radio telescopes are very sensitive, a satellite like BlueWalker 3 would be far stronger than natural radio sources in the sky even if it isn’t directly aimed at it… and the goal is to have enough of them to maintain coverage of an area at all times. The point is to at least not directly aim the beam at a radio telescope, and provide a little extra buffer room to account for the sidelobes.

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toodroot t1_iyb469i wrote

I know VLBI very well, and there's still a problem even if you take beamforming into account.

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