Word: antenna
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There are other communications satellites now in orbit (Westar 1, Comstar D2), but cable programmers like Warner Amex and HBO regard the Satcoms as particularly desirable. Reason: their customers, the cable operators around the country, have antennas that can pick up signals from only one satellite at a time. Naturally, the cable operators would rather invest in a single antenna and still receive the widest possible variety of programs to pass on to home subscribers. Since the Satcoms carry almost nothing but cable signals, they offer such a variety. Thus for programmers, leasing a transponder on a Satcom is like...
Also on the Columbia were two devices designed to map various geological resources. An imaging radar, a 30-foot long rectangular antenna, bounced sonar waves off terrain and oceans to produce images of the reflecting surfaces. And a multispectral radiometer scanned selected areas at ten infrared wavelengths...
...each of the islands' food sources. One group could well develop into an aquatic species capable of using its winged forelimbs for swimming. Another could, in the absence of competition, turn into the carnivorous night stalker, a flightless sightless bat, with ears as sensitive as a NORAD radar antenna, that carries its clawlike hind legs over its shoulders as it roams around on its forelegs screeching, in search of prey...
...fooled. The scooped-out gimcrack is nothing more than a TV antenna. It is quite a bit more, however, than the rabbit-ears atop the family console...
...jargon of the video revolution, this exotic antenna and its associated electronics are called an earth station, and the price is just as fancy as the name: from $3,500 to $14,000 for a good unit. The high tab is for high tech. An earth station pulls in a signal from one of the twelve U.S. and Canadian communication satellites beaming down from a fixed position 22,300 miles above the equator-what vid-whizzes call a "geosynchronous orbit." The signal is focused into an amplifier, which magnifies it up to 100,000 times before it is converted...