abstract | - A phase discriminator was a piece of technology used by the Federation.
- In 2151, when Malcolm Reed attempted to beam Crewman Ethan Novakovich up from the surface of a planet during a powerful windstorm, Novakovich rematerialized with debris embedded in his skin, due to the transporter's phase discriminator's inability to isolate the debris from the matter stream. (ENT: "Strange New World") In 2152, Reed was able to use a phase discriminator to decloak a device placed on the hull of one of Enterprise NX-01's shuttlepods designed to generate a plasma stream. (ENT: "Shockwave") Data's brain was outfitted with a type R phase discriminating amplifier. Lore, however, used a type L. (TNG: "Time's Arrow" ) In 2368, most of the command crew of the USS Enterprise-D were able to use a phase discriminator, in conjunction with a subspace force field, to phase-shift into the time continuum of the Devidians, aliens who were using a synchronic distortion with a positive displacement of .004 percent to conceal themselves. Later, they outfitted photon torpedoes with phase discriminators to re-phase the force of the explosions into the time continuum of the Devidians. (TNG: "Time's Arrow" , "Time's Arrow, Part II" ) The next year, Captain Picard, Lieutenant Commander Data, Lieutenant Commander La Forge, and Counselor Troi utilized the same procedure, using the type-seven phase discriminators contained in emergency transporter armbands, to protect themselves from becoming integrated into the timeframe of a temporal fragment in which the Enterprise had become trapped. (TNG: "Timescape" ) In 2370, as the Enterprise crew was testing a new photon torpedo guidance system designed by Lieutenant Worf, a radial imbalance in the phase discriminator of one of the torpedo's primary guidance module caused it to go off course. (TNG: "Genesis" ) A biospectral phase discriminator was a standard component of a runabout's sensor array. In 2372, Doctor Julian Bashir ordered Chief Miles O'Brien to remove the discriminator for the Rubicon, as he required the device to further his investigation into developing a means whereby he could cure a group of rogue Jem'Hadar from their addiction to ketracel-white. O'Brien, however, used the opportunity to utilize the runabout's transporter to escape from the Jem'Hadar who was guarding him. (DS9: "Hippocratic Oath") Later that year, after the USS Voyager had been duplicated by a subspace divergence field, the crew rigged a portable phase discriminator which could protect anyone passing through a spatial rift which linked the two ships from the deleterious effects of the spatial transition. (VOY: "Deadlock") The Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 2, p. 135) defined the "phase discriminator" as a, "signal detection and processiong device".
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