| rdfs:comment | - Compared to videocom radios, subspace radios are expensive and power hungry. The radio itself costs 20,000 Cr. It requires a Type I Parabattery to run (or needs to be attached to a larger power source) and uses 100 SEU to send a single message. And with a mass of 100 kg, it is too bulky to be carried and require a relatively fixed installations either on a planetary surface, station, or ship. It could be mounted on the back of a ground vehicle, but beyond a few military applications, there isn't much point, as the increased complexity of operation would counteract any advantage the mobility gained you.
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| abstract | - Compared to videocom radios, subspace radios are expensive and power hungry. The radio itself costs 20,000 Cr. It requires a Type I Parabattery to run (or needs to be attached to a larger power source) and uses 100 SEU to send a single message. And with a mass of 100 kg, it is too bulky to be carried and require a relatively fixed installations either on a planetary surface, station, or ship. It could be mounted on the back of a ground vehicle, but beyond a few military applications, there isn't much point, as the increased complexity of operation would counteract any advantage the mobility gained you. The transmission speed of a subspace radio is fast. The messages cover one light year in a single hour. That's a little more than 8,700 times faster than the speed of light or 8,700 times faster than a videocom radio. So that means that sending a message from one end of a planetary system to the other is nearly instantaneous. A message from Earth to Mars that would take about 21 minutes with a videocom radio would only take 0.15 seconds; a slight delay, but less than the videocom signal between the Earth and the Moon (1.25 seconds). Messages between stars would take hours instead of days and interstellar communications would be feasible. Unlike a videocom radio, subspace radios can only be used in a beamed transmission mode. They cannot broadcast omni-directionally. The same is true for the receivers. Both radios have to be pointed at each other for the message to be transmitted. In addition, the alignment of the transmitter has to be fairly exact in order to get the message to the correct destination. This means that it can't be used easily from a moving ground vehicle or a maneuvering starship (i.e. in combat, basic accelerations are okay) as the rapid changes in attitude of the transmitter would throw it out of alignment and the signal would not go to the correct place. Another difference between the subspace radio and the videocom radio is that while the videocom radio can transmit continuously, the subspace radio sends its signals in small bursts of information, called packets. It takes a finite amount of time to compose the "packet" to be sent. So while the time delay within a system is small, there is an additional overhead that adds a bit more delay to the transmission and receiving process that makes two-way conversation a difficult.
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