The choice of antenna is a lot more important than transmit power. Especially fo... | Hacker News

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tjohns on Nov 7, 2014 | parent | context | favorite | on: Receiving Dead Satellites with the RTL-SDR

The choice of antenna is a lot more important than transmit power. Especially for an application like this where high-gain is needed.

It also helps to be in space, where there's nothing to obstruct your signal. Barring obstructions, radio waves propagate indefinitely.

darkmighty on Nov 7, 2014 [–]

There's still inverse square law at play, although it's much more forgiving than atmospheric attenuation (logarithmic db loss with distance versus linear).

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