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pump up the jamz (mander.xyz)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT-64

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

These radio telescopes don't transmit anything at all, they listen to radio waves coming from the cosmos. Much like a normal telescope doesn't transmit light.

If you invert the flow of the electrons, a receiver becomes a transmitter.

Speakers can become bad microphones and vice versa. Pretty sure that a radio telescope is a very bad transmitter for human music, but it could be possible with some changes...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (5 children)

if you invert the flow of electrons, a receiver becomes a transmitter

Ehh not really. That's kind of like saying if you invert the flow of photons, your eyes work as flashlights.

"It could be possible with some changes" the changes would amount to removing the receiver and replacing it with a transmitter. In this specific case I'm not sure if a transmitter already exists at this antenna and it's definitely possible one does, but that's not a guarantee at all

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

There is no such big differences between a light emitting (LED) and a light receiving diode (photodiode), they are just the reverse of each other. In fact photodiodes can even emit light, but very inefficiently. Same in reverse, LEDs can also detect light, just badly.

It seems like most efficient energy conversion methods can be used in both directions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago

Yes, but you would blow out most of the amplification circuitry in a radio telescope reciver if you tried to use it for broadcast at any kind of power.

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