[ExI] Trying for a minimum technical comment

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Dec 16, 2012 at 4:00 AM,  Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>> wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 10:34 AM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

>> Been done.  Communication satellites produce an easily measurable
>> output on the ground.  Have you never set up a satellite dish?
>
> I meant, test the specific beam tracking & focusing mechanism
> the large sat would use.  Comm sats don't try to focus their
> output on one particular point.

Some do control where the beam power comes down.  Ever seen one where
the microwave feeder out in front of a parabolic reflector is a mirror
image of the US?  They switch the power around to get higher bandwidth
to particular spots on the ground.  Big spots to be sure because of
the relatively small optics.

Trying to point out that this is an extremely well understood field.
Nothing magic or unexpected in microwave optics.  Same with laser
optics, but there the problems are a little harder because of the high
power levels involved and you have to watch out for the power loses
heating the mirrors.