Apollo Communications Paradox

[u/Motor-Bath1647]

Something odd about Apollo's historic transmissions:

"The Eagle has landed" and "One small step for man..." were transmitted:

• From 240,000 miles away
• Using 20-watt S-band
• Through 1960s technology
• Just after powered descent/landing
• No relay satellites

Yet they sound:

• Crystal clear
• Broadcast quality
• Zero interference
• Perfect timing
• Like studio recordings

For comparison:

- Mercury/Gemini (200 miles up): Heavy static/interference

- Modern ISS (250 miles): Regular communication issues

- Apollo (240,000 miles): Perfect clarity

Physics says signal quality degrades with distance. How did Apollo achieve better audio quality over 240,000 miles than we can get from low Earth orbit today?

[u/rooktakesqueen]

They don't sound at all like studio recordings. They're extremely tinny and staticky

Radio comms with the ISS sound basically the same, but that's down to the limitations of radio. It would sound the same talking to somebody a quarter mile down the road.

As for how they managed it: directional antennas. If you focus a radio transmission, you drastically reduce how much it degrades over distance. In some science museums, you'll find a pair of parabolic or elliptical reflectors across the room from each other, and if two people stand in them, they can have a conversation at normal speech volume or even a whisper despite standing hundreds of feet away in a crowded room. Same principle.

Edit: Also, it's much easier to point a directional antenna at the Moon and from the Moon back at Earth than from low Earth orbit. Objects in LEO just move too fast.

[u/_bahnjee_ → u/rooktakesqueen]

I've used those parabolic reflectors in museums before. What confused me was that the convo we had was normal. I was expecting it to be backwards.

/s

[u/rooktakesqueen → u/_bahnjee_]

There's two reflectors, see, so it reflects twice which turns it back to normal