1

Flat Earth Debate / Re: how on (flat) earth does this work

« on: January 11, 2013, 11:48:37 AM »

Using this map, why would pilots not simply fly over the "South Pole" as the journey would be shorter? The answer is simpler than you think.

in the real world if you want to sail from Australia to south america you have to travel around Antarctica.

2

Flat Earth Debate / Re: Dish Network Earth Channel

« on: June 21, 2012, 02:57:03 PM »

No Flat Earther ever responded to the fact that dish pointers can tell you the proper angel of trajectory on different sides of the country, and that geometry can find the point of conversion in the form of a triangle.  Since this point of conversion is at the geostationary satellite by the Dish Network, I am victorious.  Please, Flat Earthers, admit it -- or disabuse me of my error.

Even worse, dish pointer sites actually use round-Earth math to compute the dish angles. http://technologyinterface.nmsu.edu/3_2/3_2e.html has the exact math these sites use. The exact formula, surprise surprise, is one that gives the azimuth/elevation angles at which an object hovering over a sphere can be seen from a point on the surface of that sphere.

3

Flat Earth General / Re: Anyone have an extra 100M Pounds?

« on: June 21, 2012, 02:02:43 PM »

Guys, let's not forget how long the Boeing 787 and Airbus A380 took to materialize, after huge delays. And those are atmospheric planes. And yet, even they had to play it safe.

An even more down-to-the-Earth example (literally): Hungary's Combino trams were delayed for several years, and had to be completely redesigned, when the original model turned out to have major safety flaws. And yet, no one accused Siemens of perpetrating a lie just to extort money from Hungary, "because rail travel is impossible, regardless of what the conspiracy tells us".

4

Flat Earth General / Re: Kickstarter Amateur Satellite: ArduSat

« on: June 19, 2012, 03:24:48 PM »

A simulation program could easily be written to do the same function.
The only thing that would be proof is if the camera could take high enough resolution of the ground to capture something on your roof that you put up moments before the image is taken.

Suggestion, from a computer programmer's standpoint:
Put a program on the ArduSat to digitally sign a message sent to it via radio, and send it back signed.
Then, when the ArduSat is up, send a randomly generated message to it, and check the digital signature on the return message.

In other words, a challenge-response authentication scheme. This way, one can be sure you are actually communicating with the ArduSat in orbit - I cannot see a way this could be faked using a simulation program.

5

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Satellite footprints - a replicatable experiment

« on: June 13, 2012, 07:32:52 PM »

@raypsi: Lack of reception due to distortion, interference or "the type of antenna the satellite uses" is easy to tell apart from a below-the-horizon condition. In the first case, as you move toward the proper reception area of the 'lite, when you do eventually enter the reception area, you will receive your first signal with a dish clearly pointed towards the sky. OTOH with an actual below-the-horizon condition, your first reception will be with a horizontally pointing dish.

Also, you still haven't explained why your supposed solar interference doesn't manifest in real life for those receiving Intelsat 10-02.

@Irushwithscvs: Because we are dealing with extremely directional antennas, reception of the signal is proof that the source of the signal is located in the direction the antenna is pointing to. The correct direction is highly dependent on your location on Earth. And if you compare the directions you need to use for receiving Intelsat 10-02 from various points on Earth, you will find that these directions diverge on the surface of a flat Earth, but converge on a round Earth. In other words, measuring the reception angles (azimuth/elevation) on different points of Earth gives a consistent location for the 'lite on a round Earth, but conflicting locations on a flat Earth.

6

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Satellite footprints - a replicatable experiment

« on: May 23, 2012, 05:45:31 PM »

Yet, we do not in real life observe solar interference when receiving Intelsat 10-02.

Also, I don't understand why being farther from the Sun is a problem for reception - as long as the Sun and the 'lite are separated by a wide-enough angle, there should be no interference. In other words, for solar noise to be a problem, Intelsat 10-02 would have to be directly behind the Sun (or at least very close to it), not merely higher than it.

7

Flat Earth Q&A / Satellite footprints - a replicatable experiment

« on: May 17, 2012, 06:41:10 PM »

There has been lots of discussion of satellites, pseudolites, stratellites (I'll just call them 'lites in this post), and the like on this forum. One question that has, AFAIK, not yet been brought up, is the issue of 'lite beam footprints.

As you may know, if you shine a point light on the surface of a sphere, the boundary of the lit area will be a circle. The farther the point light is from the sphere, the bigger the circle will be - a point light at infinity distance will light up an entire hemisphere (the boundary will be a great circle), while a point light directly on the surface of the sphere will light only a single point.

In an equirectangular projection, a circle centered on the equator of a sphere will appear as a superellipse commonly known as a "squircle". The Azimuthal stereographic projection, on the other hand, renders all circles as circles.

With that said, here is an equirectangular footprint map of the Intelsat 10-02 'lite's "Global" beam:


A feature of this 'lite is that it is essentially an isotropic "point" microwave source - if you can "see" it, you can receive transmissions from it. The shape of the footprint is a squircle, as predicted by the model of a point light shining at a sphere. To further prove this point, here is the same map in azimuthal stereographic projection (centered on the equator, at longitude 0 - the bounds of the original map are 85°N-84°S, 177°W-177°E, for those wishing to reproduce the other projections):


Indeed, the footprint is a circle.

Yet, here is the same image in the flat-Earth projection commonly used on this forum:


I've yet to see any explanation for the shape of this footprint on a flat Earth.

And now, how to actually confirm these footprints.

You will need:
-A parabolic dish reflector with a diameter of at least 3m (7ft). Limited success should be expected with a smaller dish.
-A C-band LNB converter that supports circular polarization.
-A DVB-S tuner. This can be a conventional set-top-box with free-to-air reception support, or a computer with an add-in card.
-A GPS receiver (optional, used for obtaining geographical coordinates).

What you need to do is set up your equipment (dish+LNB+tuner) at a location near the edge of reception as shown on the map.
Install the LNB on the dish, connect the tuner to the LNB, then align your dish as suggested by http://www.satlex.de/en/azel_calc-params.html?satlo=17.0&user_satlo=1&user_satlo_dir=W&location=6.33,-10.76&la=6.33&lo=-10.76&country_code=lr&diam_w=180&diam_h=180 - set your coordinates according to the values from the GPS receiver.

Now, tune your DVB-S receiver to 4084 MHz, left circular polarization, symbol rate 3906, FEC 3/4 (some DVB-S tuners can auto-detect the FEC) and scan for channels. If you are lucky, and there is nothing blocking the path between the 'lite and your receiver, you will see a signal from Senegal TV station "RTS". The farther you are (inside) from the edge of reception, the more likely you will get a signal, and the higher you will need to align your dish.

The alignment calculator I posted uses RE math to calculate the dish settings from your coordinates - oddly enough (for FE'ers at least), it works.

8

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Satellite TV

« on: February 04, 2012, 02:28:25 PM »

Some say directed signals from towers (most likely). Tom Bishop advocates "pseudolites" which are ballons in the atmosphere issuing such signals. As for the angle of the dish, it does not have to be in any way "precise." As long as it is pointing in "that general direction" it tends to receive the signal.

Not sure about the high-powered 'lites of the USA, but here in Europe, we have 'lites that require aligning the dish to within 1° of the correct angle (sometimes even less) to get a good signal. It's not just a "general direction" that you need to get right.

9

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Questions about the "Cavendish Experiment disprovement"

« on: December 01, 2011, 06:42:59 PM »

It is not my job to prove a negative.

It is your job to prove an exception to a rule. You can't just say e.g. "Iron mined in Papua New Guinea does not interact magnetically", and consider it true until proven false - given that iron, in general, does interact magnetically you are going directly *against* Occam's razor by doing that - even if no one has ever tested iron from Papua New Guinea.

10

Flat Earth General / Re: Pseudolites

« on: November 22, 2011, 03:19:54 PM »

Also, pseudolites or stratellites don't solve the problem I posted - that the experienced areas-of-visibility of real-life 'lites match the coverage areas predicted by spherical geometry on a round Earth, while projecting the same coverage area on a disk map yields an unexplained shape (basically a distorted half-circle rouded at its 2 "corners"). Any kind of (near-isotropically radiating) 'lite will produce a coverage/visibility area with a circular boundary on a spherical projection (round Earth), even actual known ground pseudolites like Hungary's Antenna Digital. On the other hand, no theoretical 'lite can produce the expected "half-circle" visibility area on a plane with the North Pole at the center (flat Earth).

11

Flat Earth General / Re: Pseudolites

« on: November 22, 2011, 04:40:17 AM »

Perhaps the biggest problem:
How can pseudolites / stratellites go below the horizon from certain points on a flat Earth? And why is the boundary of the area on Earth from which a 'lite is visible above the horizon shaped the way it is? (See my post in "Spooky things" in the FAQ forum for more details.)

12

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Spooky stuff

« on: November 21, 2011, 03:06:46 AM »

Yes, I understand why it is a squircle - I merely pointed it out that the weird shape (squircle) has a logical explanation; it's a circle when projected on a spherical surface.

My question was to FEers / those denying the existence of satellites - the boundary being a squircle in a flat (Mercator? Cylinder?) projection is consistent with a satellite radio source orbiting around a globe (round Earth), possibly also with a satellite hovering in circles above a flat plane (flat Earth, with satellites possible - not sure about this), but not with the signal coming from ground sources fixed to a flat plane (flat Earth model with no spaceflight and ground pseudolites).

13

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Spooky stuff

« on: November 19, 2011, 05:20:56 PM »

Another problem about satellites:

See the following image:
http://www.astra-aps.de/worldskies/satellites/footprints/NSS-5-340E-Global.jpg

It is the footprint (area of reception) of NSS-5, located @ 20 degrees West, supposedly above the Equator. The picture uses a flat projection (Mercator?) of an assumed spherical Earth. Due to the projection, the boundary looks like a "squircle" - the same image projected on a sphere would show the boundary as a true circle. Projecting it on the disc map commonly used on this forum, yields a completely nondescript shape.

This particular radio source (satellite? tower?) radiates nearly omnidirectionally, so if from a point on Earth, you have a line of sight to it, then a big-enough dish should allow you to receive the signal. Hence the distinctive perimeter shape (to which all other supposed satellite signals tend to converge - often, a more directional beam, when mapped, will look like it is "cut off" by this shape) - at the perimeter, the radio source can be seen touching the horizon; and crossing the perimeter causes it to drop below the horizon, preventing further reception.

My question is: Why is the shape of the perimeter (the curve at which the radio source appears to touch the horizon) shaped the way it is?

If we assume that the Earth is round, then we can easily explain it as an object in geosynchronous orbit (a satellite) emitting the signal. Any point-like object that emits radiation isotropically will always light up an area on any nearby sphere that will be bounded by a circle. The relative radius of the bounding circle is a function of the radius of the sphere, and the distance between the emitter and the center of the sphere.

However, on a flat Earth, we get no such model. Instead, translating the above image onto the disc map will yield a footprint with a perimeter that is impossible to achieve with a single emitter. (Remember, it is not enough to just lose signal exactly at the perimeter - the cause of the signal loss must be the radio source going below the horizon, for the theory to be consistent with observation.) The idea of multiple emitters may come up, but it is easily disproven by the fact that there are no reports of geographical fluctuations/discontinuities in the received signal strength of this source.
(On top of that, I suspect that not even multiple emitters can yield the above footprint on a flat disk.)

EDIT: Here is another radio source showing the same footprint: http://staging.satbeams.com/footprints?beam=6321
(The map projection is different, but it is the same basic footprint.)

Unlike the other one, this "satellite" broadcasts a continuous DVB-T transmission of Benin's Canal 3 TV channel, so it should be easier to confirm.

14

Flat Earth Q&A / Re: Amateur satellites

« on: October 22, 2011, 08:47:08 PM »

A few posts up, there is an image of parabolic dish antennas aimed at satellites (per RE theory) / ground pseudolites (per FE theory).

An important fact is that all dishes visible on the picture are of the offset-type - they point higher than their apparent angle.

See the following image:


Actual, prime-focus dishes used for receiving "satellite" TV are usually aimed like this:


In some countries, ground-based microwave transmission is also used (such as Hungary's Antenna Digital system).
An offset-type antenna used for receiving Antenna Digital can be seen on this picture of a house:


Notice how the antenna appears to be pointing downwards. The actual beam received by the antenna is horizontal.

This is how a prime-focus dish receiving Antenna Digital looks like: