what happened to the satellites when the nukes hit? in order for te radios to function a satellite would have to be functioning.

The satellite for GNR is on th washington monument... But the sattelites still do work... You can activate some stuff in there, the enclave probably uses it.

Satellites are only required for communication over extreme distances- say, Accross the US or on the other side of the world. The Radio receive requires Line-of-sight with the object that is emitting the signal; a tall object, such as the Washington Monument, would provide the required Line-of-Sight throughout the Capital Wasteland, though not in any other areas. Fortunatly, only below-ground structures tend to block radio signals; this is why you can hear a clear radio signal with 10 buildings between you and the radio tower, yet hear only static a few feet below ground.

Besides, most radio sattelites tend to be in geosynchronous orbit; it's unlikley that they would fall, though they may power down or break due to not being serviced/replaced for over 200 years.

Radio has been around before Satellites.

There are, however, some Satellites still orbiting earth.

One of the relay towers in the north / Northwest part of the map has a terminal where you can enter a password to launch the Nukes of one of the satellites that are still orbiting around earth.

Needless to say, those nukes are pretty old and don't pack a lot of punch anymore.

The satellites orbiting earth would not work as they are 200 years old and no-one has control over them as most people were killed

Kind of contradicting youself, no?

What do you mean

ohay
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/NW-05a


And two more from the canned Fallout 3
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Satellites_and_spacecraft

I stand corrected then.

i dunno if im not reading right or what.. kinda feel like im taking crazy pills

I'm sure those 3 aren't the only ones. Then again, nothing was seen when you had this nice view down on earth from Mothership Zeta, so who knows. One can only speculate.

its not the first time in fallout game that satellites have been used.

People, with a shortwave radio, its not necessary to have satellites to listen to radio, even over long distances. My grandad used to listen to Russians in Afghanistan with his radio in the UK. Satelites are only for instantaneous transmission. Radiowaves reflect and kind of bounce, you can hear British broadcasts in the US with a shortwave radio. You certainly could before the launch of Sputnik, at any rate.

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/22/4622-004-7CDB33F3.gif

Come on, they teach this to six year olds.

its not that satellites are really used for instantaneous transmiission, latency is actually one of the drawbacks... its just that by converting to digital, youre able to fit a lot more data into the bandwitdth-at least for modern satellites.. the first ones didnt matter so much, there wasnt really a need for multichannel bandwidths..

though it was nice to have a fequency that wouldnt be picked up by other countries, and reliably pass data anywhere that the satellite can see, rather than anywhere a radiotower could.

Perhaps, the main use was for telephone exchange and TV, but its not necessary to use them to get radio signals from one end of the US to the other.

terrestrial radio is much more locally, or passed through relay towers.. sure you can go from one end of teh US to the other, but your signal is going to degrade, much more significantly..
unless youre in a ham radio or CB club, youre really only going to recieve, because they dont want too much noise in the air on those frequencies.

lol. sorry.. almos typed up a huge piece on the differences of satellite and terrestrial signals

That's not a satellite. It's simply a dish that can transmit and receive radio signals. As already said, it's a pretty simply LOS type radio. Satellites are hardly needed for over the horizon communications. Tropospheric Scatter, for example, provides a reliable method for transmitting both voice and data at long ranges.

The Enclave definitely makes use of old satellites.

On every of their field outposts there is always one or more a sat-dishes. They communicate only over short areas in the Capital Wasteland but maybe they are connected to a large country wide communication grid and therefore go over satellites all the time.

The Navarro base in F2 also had a big sat-dish.

Afterall, we dont know how large the Enclave really is and where they are all over the USA in 2277.

They have the knowledge about the old satellites, frequencies, flight paths etc. Of course many of them wont function anymore while others still work and just wait to recieve a connection.
In the end you just have to try to connect, one by one until you recieve a answer from the sat or not.

Maybe they are solar powered or have RTG batteries.

Like the "Bradley-Hercules" and "Highwater Trousers" weapons platforms.

I just wonder why these two were still armed. Maybe their respective command centers were nuked in 2077 before they could sent up the fire orders ?

Aren't sattelites solar powered

Yes but in the Fallout universe It's all nuclear powered

Yes, but those solar panels WILL get damaged by micrometors, and most sattlelite componets will only last a few years (Face it, your average sedan has to be taken into the repair shop sometime within 20 years. And how many times did Astronauts go up to repair the Hubble? At least 5 or 6 times since it's been launched.) I doubt any pre-war sattlites would be in any kind of operational conditioning, due to the rigors of space (extreme radiation, temperatures between 250 to -250 depending on what is and is not facing the sun, constant threat of micrometors, CME (Corneal Mass Ejections, AKA Solar Flares)... it makes the Wasteland look like paradise!)

the hubble was mostly fixes because it wasnt working properly to begin with..

i do think solar flares and cosmic debris would take most satellites out, eventually-in our universe..

we cant be sure what tech theyre using for their satellites, or the amount of them that were orbiting during the time of the great war, though..

while it seems relistic to say that they would be pretty similar, that wouldnt be entirely accurate

So... the three batteries that had to be replaced a few months ago were never working properly since it was launched, rather than just losing power after operating 13 years after their life expectency? Or Half of the 6 gyroscopes needed to be replaced after THEY failed? Or the replacement of a Guidance sensor after it started to fail? Or the fact it's solar arrays had to be replaced twice due to wear and tear?

The only problem the Hubble had when it was launched was a flawed main reflector. Three years later, that was replaced. Everything else has been a repair/servicing, and/or upgrade to the telescope.

Or you can think of every Hubble mission as a cover story for putting weapons in space.

color me educated then..