milliways_bar | (no subject)

It's not often that Ellen sees properly robotic-looking robots around here. Or any robots, really, other than the two that follow Alyx Vance around. Spotting Robo's enough to get her attention; seeing that he's reading something is enough to get her to... try and read whatever it is he's reading, because it looks like it might be interesting. Even if she's looking at it from the other side of the table and therefore everything is upside down.

Normally she has better manners than this. We're so sorry.

There's also the fact that Robo is dressed. Pockets are handy.

"Can I help you?"

Yeah, the only robot she knows who wears clothes at home is Chief Harkness, and he's passing as human. Button Gwinnett didn't count, he was a little delusional.

"Oh! I'm sorry," Ellen says. "I just- I wanted to see what you were reading, that's all. I didn't mean to interrupt."

Well Robo has citizenship. That might be a common factor.

"Not a problem. Just studying up for my amateur radio license renewal," says Robo, "Mostly it's checking to make sure I didn't miss a regulation change when I was busy at this point."

"I don't think I really understood much of that beyond the part where there's a radio involved," Ellen confesses. "You have rules about who can use them, where you come from?"

"Mostly for transmissions. It helps keep interference out of the emergency channels, and that sort of thing," says Robo, "Pull up a chair."

"Okay," says Ellen readily. "This looks interesting."

Seriously, she has no idea what Three Dog does besides talk. The other side of his work at Galaxy News Radio is a mystery.

"It can be, if you don't let yourself get bogged down," agrees Robo, "There are a lot of details and fine tuning, but at the end of it radios are simple machines."

"Still, I guess I should actually check what you know about radio to begin with. Before I wander of into jargon on you anyway.

"Very little," Ellen says. "I know radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum and that they allow for wireless broadcasting of sound over long distances, but we didn't have any where I grew up. Most of the ones I've seen since then run on vacuum tubes. I helped a broadcaster fix his antenna once, but that's about it, really."

"More than enough to start with," says Robo, "There's two major ways to put information on a radio wave; to modulate it. The first is Amplitude Modulation, or AM. The second is Frequency Modulation, or FM."

"Oh, so that's why Gus asked if we were still using AM radio," Ellen says. "Is it an older method or something?"

"It came first and it's simpler to work with in a lot of ways," says Robo, "With AM each radio station has a particular frequency and the voice, or music, or what every is encoded in how much power is used to broadcast the frequency. To get it back out you don't need much - you can build a tuned circuit and a diode in a shed and out of rocks if you have to."

Or a cave and a box of scraps.

"Gotcha," Ellen says. "That sounds convenient."

"It can be. Now FM works by varying the frequency the signal is transmitted on within a fairly narrow range instead of the amplitude," continues Robo, "When you can get FM it's almost always clearer than the AM stations, but you can hear AM for further. I can show you the math behind it later if you're interested -"

Robo taps one of the books.

"- but that's how it behaves."

"I'm no engineer, but it seems like the kind of thing that would be a really good idea to know," Ellen says. "Especially if some kind of portable rig could be devised. The Wasteland back home's an awfully big place, and there's not a lot of communication options."

"How portable things are depends on the frequencies you use," says Robo, "Well, more the good antenna lengths. You can use anything metal if you have to, but something that works out to a quarter or half of the wavelength works better."

"... okay, that's where we may run into a problem," Ellen says. "Just how big is that in plain old physical terms?"

"Probably something in the range of seven or eight feet for some of the bands," says Robo, "It's not crucial by any stretch though. I wouldn't even bother with it for a mobile rig - there are better places to put your weight once you have a decent antenna. More batteries is always a good bet."

"Oh, that shouldn't be a problem," Ellen says. "The fission batteries I find in some of the old Protectrons that try to kill me have a lot of juice left in them."

Robo doesn't wince, but that's mostly because they talked a bit before. Cars with nuclear power plants leave an impression.

"Fair enough. Now shortwave is one of things I get to play around with because I'm licensed. With that it's not uncommon to signal between the western US and southern Africa and that's without doing anything really fancy like bouncing a signal off the moon or a meteor shower."

"You can do that?" Ellen says, blinking. "Wow. What kind of equipment do you need for that?"

"A directional antenna is a good start, plus a few hundred watts of power," says Robo, "The trick is to use frequencies that get reflected by the upper layers of the atmosphere and come back to the ground again. That lets you skip around the curve of the Earth."

There are more details like valves and high frequency transformers, but broad strokes are still the idea here.

Ellen nods. "And you have to use one that you've agreed on first, right?" she says. "With whoever you're trying to reach, I mean?"

Robo nods. "More or less. If you know what to listen and look for you can find a station anyway, but that's a whole lot of work. There are circuits that will actually look for things like carrier waves too, those get used for fine tuning a signal automatically."

Robo pulls one of the books over and begins flipping though it for circuit diagrams.

"Let me see if I can hunt up one of the negative feedback loops to give you an idea."

"I know my Pip-Boy used to scan for and pick up radio signals without my adjusting it," Ellen says. "That was when it worked, though."

"Huh. I wonder which circuit it used?" says Robo, Here's the basic layout. This part compares for the carrier wave here - it needs to be a variable frequency generator for that on the other input..."

"No clue," Ellen says, "although if you ever wanted a look, I still have it upstairs..."

She leans over to follow along on the layout, nodding thoughtfully.

"...And that brings use back to the basic tricks for pulling the signal out. I've got some books I could loan you if you're interested. Most of the modern ones at home assume you'll be using solid state setups, but some of my old ones have tube circuits."

"Actually, that'd probably be a good idea," Ellen says. "I just wish I had something I could trade to you in return. Somehow I don't think most of my weapon schematics'd be all that useful to you."

"Pay it forward," says Robo with a shrug, "It's not like I lose the information when I share it anyway. Besides, one of the reasons that governments allow amateur radio operators is so there are people to restore communications after major disasters."

Admittedly it's taking longer than usual for Ellen's world, but it's a bigger disaster than you see just about anywhere else.

Ellen nods. "If I come up with any interesting info or tech in my world that I can pass on to you without losing it, I'll bring it to you anyway," she says, "and in the meantime I'll make sure that it starts getting spread around back home. With the water project under way I think we're going to need to be able to stay in touch."

"Communication is a big thing," says Robo, "And with radio you only need to hold points to have a working system. With something like telegraphs you need to hold a line between places and that's a lot harder."

Plus people will try and steal the wire to sell back to you. Sometimes people are jerks.

"No kidding," Ellen agrees. "The roads alone out there are just plain murder. I don't like to think what else we'd have to do if we had to hold them all and wires."

"Wait until you get trains running again," warns Robo, "They're one of the best ways to more freight, even with animals doing the pulling though, so they will turn up again."

At least they aren't down to heliographs. Those take way long to set up and talk back to your Fort with.

"That's going to be an interesting prospect," Ellen says. "I'm not sure what fuel they'd use. It'd almost have to be atomic, since if there's any gasoline out there it's long since been used up or else it's under armed guard."

"There are organics you can use potentially," says Robo, "My world is just starting to look at them heavily now, but they require a lot of infrastructure. I don't know what would work for you guys."

Ethanol is a bad idea probably. Algaeculture is better but it's still not going to cut it.

"We'll have to see," Ellen says. "Right now as far as organic anything goes, I'm still waiting on the results of the seed experiment I started earlier this year. I found a valley full of plants that'd adapted to the Wasteland environmental conditions and took a bunch of seeds with me back to Megaton to find out if they'd grow anywhere else."

"I hope it works out," says Robo, "I don't want to think what it would take to start putting things together if everything has to be grown in hydroponics tanks and little strips of reclaimed land.""

"The hydroponic tanks in the Vault were a pain in the neck," Ellen says. "If we had to work with them I could probably train people to use them, but I'll be a lot happier if the Oasis seeds are good outside of the valley."

"I don't quite see you as a latter day Johnny Appleseed spreading tanks and nutrients where ever you go," says Robo. It might be agreement. Who can say?

"There are worse legacies than that if it comes down to it though."

Ellen looks a little blank at the name, but nods. "If the Oasis seeds work I won't need to bring the tanks," she says. "If they don't, well, I'm going to be spreading safe water, if nothing else. One more tank on the Brahmin won't hurt anything."

"Johnny Appleseed was famous for going around and planting apple trees where ever he went," explains Robo, "The real history is more complicated, but that's the popular image at home."

"Water is probably the bigger deal. You can't do things like even the hydroponics without the water after all."

"True," Ellen says. "Which is why I'm glad the Brotherhood of Steel's taken over the operation. I'd never have been able to run it all by myself. Now I just have to help out, and go to fight the Enclave or whoever might attack the caravans or outlying settlements we travel to."

"Radio can only help there too," says Robo, "The more you have people talking to each other, the easier it is to trade, or share intel about attackers moving or any number of things."

Communication saves lives. It's that simple.

Ellen nods. "Does the Bar have more than one copy of those books you're working from?" she says. "I'd like to bring some of them back with me to work with..."

"I don't think it would be a problem," says Robo, "I'll spring for a couple of reference copies if you need them but you'll probably want older editions for the really nitty gritty parts. The modern books at home all assume microchips."

"I'll see what they've got, then," Ellen says. "I think I can justify this expense. It's the kind of thing the Brotherhood goes in for in a big way anyway."

"It's good to know how your gear actually works," agrees Robo, "Good luck getting things in better shape at home."

"Thank you," says Ellen. "I appreciate it."