Comment by thw_9a83c
15 days ago
Great story! At first, I got the impression that your dad was receiving a video stream directly from Voyager's signal. Of course, that would be technically impossible, since Voyager 1 requires approx. 70-meter radio telescopes and specialized equipment to obtain data.
So, what was the "satellite feed" mentioned in the story? Was it a regular TV broadcast, or something more internal distributed by NASA?
Born in 81 here. One of my childhood memories is of watching the broadcast of the flyby of Neptune in 89. I believe it was on PBS, or something similar.
I just looked it up, they had something called Neptune at Night that broadcast from midnight to 9AM. I probably caught it in the mornings before school.
I was too young to know what it was. He had some big dish antennas that he was always futzing with, and I'm sure he was using one of those, but I presume it was some kind of relay signal. Unfortunately I'm not a radio guy.