A Visit to Radio Frequency Sector at South Pole
The 9 meter MARISAT dish platform at South Pole Station
A frequent question that comes up is how and with what do we communicate with the outside world with- so on a fairly nice day (and with little to do over at ARO) I went out to visit visit the satellite dish field about a mile grid south of the new station. This was actually the furthest I've been away from the station since before station close- pretty exciting!
So what kinds of things are way over here? Well for one thing, this is the only area that's actively broadcasting any radio frequencies. The astronomers over in dark sector prefer things to be as "quiet" as possible, so that means putting communications as far as humanly possibly away from their equipment- so that's how RF sector was chosen. Around station, radio use is limited to handheld personal communication radios and very little else- no cordless phones, no personal radio transmitters, and no wireless networking. Everything has to be wired- but the network facilities in the station are pretty good, so that's not really a problem.
Want to see what goes on here? Follow the link.....