zlacker

>>belter+(OP)
Dave from EEVBlog just visited a facility communicating with Voyager 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=586Zn1ct-QA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUvzgZt1Vug

There's a part 3 with a tour of the complex.

>>sho_hn+Wi
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Goldstone, up in the California desert on Fort Irwin. It's not open to the public very often.

I got to visit most everything there, including the 70m telescope. It was just a cool space tech nerd day of tours, presentations, and sunshine.

The dichotomy of the 70m antenna is interesting is that it broadcasts 450 kilowatts of power out into space, but has to receive and decode, "as small as 1 billionth of 1 billionth of 1 watt" signals from the space craft.

One of the reasons its on a military base is to restrict the airspace above it so that they don't accidentally cook some aircraft that happens to overfly the antenna when it's transmitting.

It's truly astonishing they're able to pull that off, frankly.