Communicators

[Wingsley]

In "Mudd's Women", Magda hands Harry Mudd a communicator and tells him a subspace frequency to use in contacting Rigel XII. Mudd then hails the Rigel mining colony from deep space.

In TNG's "Silicon Avatar", Riker uses his commbadge to contact the Enterprise while the ship is still at warp in deep space.

Can we establish from these incidents that communicators in TOS and TNG are subspace transceivers, and that they have more than orbital range?

 

[Timo]

We could be speaking of the range of a communications network, rather than of an individual device.

In "The Schitzoid Man", communicators maintain connection for several seconds while the E-D warps away from the planetside team at extreme speed. So the little mobile phone probably spans at least a couple of lighthours, at least when the other end of the line consists of a state-of-the-art communications device.

Who is listening may be far more important to good communications than who is speaking. Earth's real deep space probes have transmitters with ridiculously feeble output, and maintain communications because Earth has extremely sensitive receivers. Similarly, badges may lack the power to form a badge-badge connection between a planet and its moon, but a single badge can still contact a starship that is several lighthours distant.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Wingsley said:
In "Mudd's Women", Magda hands Harry Mudd a communicator and tells him a subspace frequency to use in contacting Rigel XII. Mudd then hails the Rigel mining colony from deep space.

In TNG's "Silicon Avatar", Riker uses his commbadge to contact the Enterprise while the ship is still at warp in deep space.

Can we establish from these incidents that communicators in TOS and TNG are subspace transceivers, and that they have more than orbital range?

I'm pretty sure that communicators would be hybrid devices, operating in both the conventional E/M bands and in subspace mode, depending on the operator-selected settings. We know that "old style radio" is seldom seen in TOS-era times. But we also know that TOS-era communicators are CAPABLE of RF-frequency operation.

So, a communicator has as a minimum the following components:

1) A HIGH OUTPUT power cell (necessary to push signals powerful enough to reach high-orbit spacecraft... and the "sensitivity of the receiver" argument doesn't counter that, since the signal strength still needs to be sufficient to overcome background E/M noise).

2) A radio-frequency transmitter.

3) A radio-frequency receiver.

4) A subspace transmitter.

5) A subspace receiver.

(it's POSSIBLE that some of the above could be accomplished using a single mode/switchable device, but it seems unlikely)

6) Some form of display. (I think that the little round thing on the communicator is a visual display, not a "speaker microphone")

7) Some form of manual controls (five pushbuttons, at least two of which are also rotational controls).

Some form of audio (and I really expect video as well!) pickup.

9) Some form of audio output (and, I think, the ability to use the center display as a video output).

Now, a video input could be a pinhole device, the speaker could be in the case, and we see a little grill that would be the audio pickup. The electronics control elements would be very tiny indeed. So the majority of the package would be a power cell and the transceiver elements.

It's not unreasonable to assume that the grid is the r/f receiver antenna, and could also be the r/f transmitter element. The subspace antenna element would have to be internal, though.

 

[Wingsley]

One thing always got me about communications in TOS, and ever since.

Both the hand-talkies and the intercom units aboard ship must rely on some sort of voice-recognition software, so when Kirk speaks "Kirk to D'Amato", the communicator recognizes Kirk's command and pages D'Amato's specific device. I would imagine that each communicator (and possibly each intercom) has its own IP address, or 23rd century equivalent.

In fact, 23rd century tech should be miniaturized enough that each communicator has its own mini-computer for processing at least basic voice commands.

So there's another component for you.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Wingsley said:
One thing always got me about communications in TOS, and ever since.

Both the hand-talkies and the intercom units aboard ship must rely on some sort of voice-recognition software, so when Kirk speaks "Kirk to D'Amato", the communicator recognizes Kirk's command and pages D'Amato's specific device. I would imagine that each communicator (and possibly each intercom) has its own IP address, or 23rd century equivalent.

In fact, 23rd century tech should be miniaturized enough that each communicator has its own mini-computer for processing at least basic voice commands.

So there's another component for you.

Oh, yeah... I thought that "control electronics" was on my list.

Now, I have a Razr. I've got it programmed to be a speaker-phone by default, and to answer automatically whenever I open it. It rings with a communicator chirp, and I can voice-dial. So, it really works remarkably closely to what the TOS communicator does. It "chirps", I flip it open and talk into it from a distance...

The CONTROL equipment for this would fit onto the head of a pin by the TOS era. So that part... the part that makes up most of what people today think of as " a cell phone"... is inconsequential. It's the POWER hardware... the power cell and the transceiver hardware... that would give you a larger object.

That, and the fact that it's just so unbelievably COMFORTABLE in the hand... much moreso than any cell phone today (including the Razr, which is certainly the best one I've dealt with recently, with the Samsung "Razr clone" coming in a close second). The TOS communicator was designed by Wah Chang to fit into the relaxed hand of any adult without any muscles needing to be used. It's PERFECT.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Don't forget the ever-popular transporter signal that the communicator sends on a constant basis, so that when the ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal is about to rip your face off, the ship can beam your sorry butt up before you realize that you forgot your towel.

 

[Timo]

...Except that apparently it doesn't work quite that way. You have to specifically request for transport, supposedly activating a beacon in the same process. After all, a communicator just left lying somewhere cannot be beamed up, or in the titular ENT episode even easily located.

TNG era badges do seem to have some sort of a locator signal constantly turned on, so that the only way to shake pursuit is to abandon the badge. Or then not; even though we see people shake pursuit by leaving the badge behind, this might simply be a belt-and-suspenders approach: not only do they stop the signal from emanating from their location, they also make it emanate from a false location. The simple option of turning off the beacon might still exist.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Ronald Held]

I think that the TOS communicators do not have the auto transporter signal on, as in TNG, but that is ~80 years of advancement is size and capabilities.
I am certain that they have computers in them with some AI capacities.

 

[nx1701g]

Correct me if I'm wrong but in the Voyager episode Resolutions wasn't Voyager 40 days away from the planet where Chakotay and Janeway were being left behind and still contacting them?

 

[Timo]

Actually, Tuvok states that the communications can only be maintained for 36 hours after the ship's departure. And the first call he makes to the Captain after his return from the Vidiians is 30 hours away from the planet.

And that's not necessarily with commbadges. Janeway and Chakotay may have had a more powerful subspace transceiver in their possession (and the badges would route through that), but even that wouldn't span more than those 36 hours.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Kagan]

Timo said:
Actually, Tuvok states that the communications can only be maintained for 36 hours after the ship's departure. And the first call he makes to the Captain after his return from the Vidiians is 30 hours away from the planet.

Could it be that he is referring to the fact that Star Fleet doesn't have any communications relays in the Delta Quadrant? I mean, surely the Alpha and Beta Quadrants are replete with them.

 

[Timo]

Yes, that's the most probable reason. Probably the ship could lay its own relays, but how long would they survive in the hostile Delta environment? Not to mention that they'd lead the bad guys to the ship all too easily.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Here's a question to ponder: In the Alpha or Beta quadrants of the 23rd or 24th centuries, a Federation starship beams down a long-term survey team, complete with supplies, equipment, shelter-kits, etc. The starship proceeds out of the system to their next assignment. (Maybe the starship even beams down more than one team to different locations on different parts of the globe for different missions.)

Now, what does the starship do to assure communications between various parties, and the starship, as well as possibly hooking into the Federation's own communication network? (Let's assume the starship doesn't leave behind a shuttlecraft.) Does the starship deposit a communications relay satellite in orbit? Is there some thing else Starfleet would do instead?

 

[Ronald Held]

Why can't the combadges or communicators be able to contact each other on the planet's surface via subspace frequencies?

 

[Wingsley]

They probably can, but it's probably going to be problematic if different mission/teams are located on opposing sides of a planet. I look at it this way: if a transporter beam can't send a person deep in a subterranean chamber without alien help, and can't reasonably expect to communicate with an orbiting starship from deep underground (TOS: "Return to Tomorrow") then it is reasonable to conclude that communicators will have difficulty getting signals far beyond the horizon. It is also reasonable to expect that a planet's rotation would interfere with the ability of a surface party communicating with anyone in deep space unless a satellite is available to eliminate obstruction issues.

 

[Captain Robert April]

AM radio signals travel along the ground as well as line-of-sight through the air, so I don't think it's unreasonable for communicators to have some sort of similar capability, especially if you're on a planet that doesn't have an existing communications net (which would be most of them).

 

[Wingsley]

Doesn't it seem to fit in the realm of TREK, that starships which carry recorder-marker pods and probes, would also carry communications relay satellites/buoys to allow expeditions/missions on non-member worlds a means of communication, both around a given planet/system and outside the system?

 

[Captain Robert April]

A lot of work for what could be accomplished with an AM transmitter and a crystal set.

 

[Ronald Held]

Too primative to be easily thought of.

 

[Wingsley]

AM would not have the benefit of allowing surface-to-network communication outside the system. That would require a subspace transceiver. I would imagine that starbases, whether they are planet-based or aboard a space station, are more likely to rely on power cells in space (or if they are based on fusion reactors) than installing ones on a planet. (Better to have a Three Mile Island reactor failure in space than on a planet's surface.)

I would also imagine that a satellite/buoy would also offer other benefits: if you wanted to monitor climate or soils trends over a large area, it would be helpful to have the buoy take aerial pictures for you. That's much more cost-effective than asking a starship to remain in orbit for extended periods of time, and still no shuttlecraft are required, either.